CHAKWAL’S Bhoun Chowk, the central square of the city, erupted into jubilation late on Tuesday evening as the results of the PP-20 by-election started pouring in from different polling stations.

Hundreds of workers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) thronged the residence of party candidate Chaudhry Sultan Haider Ali located at the right corner of the square.

According to the consolidated results issued by the District Returning Officer, PML N’s candidate got 75,958 votes against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Raja Tariq Mehmood Afzal’s 46,025, securing a huge margin of 29,933 votes in a constituency where the PTI joined hands with the Pakistan Peoples Party, Pakistan Awami Tehreek, Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Samiul Haq) and Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen.

Although the PML-N won the by-election with a heavy margin that too at a time when it is struggling to fight against different challenges ranging from the disqualification of its chief Nawaz Sharif, Khatm-i-Nubuwat controversy, political crisis in Balochistan, hostile behaviour of major political parties and “other anti-democratic forces” and all these challenges at a time when the country is heading towards the 2018 general elections, yet its victory did not come as “something surprising”, at least in Chakwal, a district which has remained the party’s stronghold since 1985.

Since 1985 politics in Chakwal, particularly in NA-60 of which PP-20 is sub-constituency, remained between the PML-N and its major rival Sardar group.

The Sardar group was founded by the late Sardar Mohammad Ashraf Khan of Dullah village whose nemesis was PML-N’s late Lt Gen Abdul Majeed Malik.

After the death of Sardar Ashraf, Sardar Ghulam Abbas, a distant relative of the former, emerged as the latter’s successor.

Mr Abbas established himself as the most influential politician of the district as he still enjoys the largest personal vote bank of more than 100,000. Mr Abbas, who remained a provincial minister and twice district nazim, was the sole major rival of the PML-N in Chakwal till a year ago.

When in 2012 he joined the PTI it was believed that the PML-N would suffer a setback in the 2013 general elections, but Mr Abbas quit the PTI before elections after developing differences with Imran Khan.

He contested the 2013 elections as an independent candidate from NA-60 and got 100,100 votes against PML-N’s retired Major Tahir Iqbal’s 129,159, while PTI’s candidate Raja Yasir Humayun Sarfraz could only get 47,546.

In the 2015 local bodies election, he also dented the PML-N stronghold by clinching many union councils. “After the 2013 general elections, PML N’s top brains decided to take those electable politicians in the party who were in the PTI. In a meeting chaired by Hamza Shahbaz, Sardar Abbas was also marked as he got 100,100 votes as an independent candidate,” says a source privy to the development.

In 2016, the people of Chakwal were left stunned when the PML-N managed to get Sardar Abbas in its ranks despite the severe opposition of its local leaders and workers and even of its stalwart Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

With Sardar Abbas’s entry in the PML-N, politics in Chakwal became one-sided as two major political forces merged into each other. Tuesday’s heavy mandate of PML-N’s candidate was also a result of Sardar Abbas’s influence and popularity as his group’s candidate Chaudhry Ejaz Hussain Farhat got 35,570 votes in the last general elections in this constituency.

After Sardar Abbas’s exit from the PTI, the party became a weak political entity across the district. Currently, the PTI does not have a single politician in Chakwal who could be rated even as a competitive candidate against PML-N’s experienced politicians.

This time instead of Chaudhry Ali Nasir Bhatti, who contested from this constituency in the last general elections, the PTI brought a new face in the form of Raja Tariq Mehmood Afzal thinking that he would be able to get good votes from rural areas as he himself hails from a village and has blood relations with the Chaudhrys of Siral and Sardars of Dullah, but Mr Tariq could not get as many votes as was expected.

The PTI’s popularity dwindled even in those villages where it performed well in the last general and local bodies’ elections because of two factors.

First, its candidate was a stranger in many villages and even in Chakwal city and second, the Tehreek-i-Labbaik also dented PTI’s vote bank, instead of damaging the PML-N.

As the Tehreek-i-Labbaik has emerged as a representative political party of the Barelvi sect, it could not attract the voters belonging to the Deobandi sect and an overwhelming majority of Deobandi voters is in the PML-N because the Tehreek-i-Khuddam-i-Ahl-i-Sunnat Waljamaat, the representative faction of Deobandis in the district, always backs the PML-N.

“It was a by-election held under the rule of PML-N. The next general election would be different in Chakwal as the PML-N will have to opt for either Sardar Ghulam Abbas or its current MNA Tahir Iqbal. We will try our best to bring the ignored one in our party,” says a senior PTI leader.

Tehreek-i-Labbaik’s candidate Advocate Chaudhry Nasir Abbas stunned the political observers by getting 16,577 votes yet many are of the view that his party would not be able to retain its influence.

“This election was held shortly after the Faizabad sit-in and voters were emotional, but this clout is not likely to last longer,” says Syed Zia Ul Hassan Zaidi, a senior member of the Chakwal Bar Association.

Meanwhile, the PTI has accused the PML-N of rigging the by-election. In a press release issued on Wednesday, Raja Sarfraz alleged that government resources were blatantly used by the PML-N and money was distributed in the constituency through parliamentarians from other districts. He claimed that 15,000 additional votes were polled in the PML-N’s favour.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2018