Sardar Ghulam Abbas was thrown out of electoral politics by the Supreme Court earlier this month but you wouldn’t know it by the state of his office.

It is 12:30pm on Saturday, and scores of people are at the office in Balkassar, 12 kilometres from Chakwal city, and Mr Abbas’ constantly-ringing phone has been silenced so he can attend to his visitors.

Despite his removal as Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) candidate in Chakwal, Mr Abbas remains an important individual for both the PTI and the PML-Q, who need his active support to mount a real challenge to the PML-N in a district that has been the former governing party’s stronghold since the 1980s.

When the PTI nominated Mr Abbas as its candidate in NA-64 on June 8, political observers in Chakwal were certain that Mr Abbas would end the 33-year hegemony of the PML-N in this constituency.

In past elections, the late Gen Abdul Majeed Malik was elected MNA five times, and his nephew retired Maj Tahir Iqbal was elected MNA twice – both from the PML-N. Observers felt that the PTI would emerge victorious because of Mr Abbas’ own around 100,000 personal votes combined with the party’s 50 to 60,000 votes in the constituency.

In 2013, Mr Iqbal won NA-64 with 129,000 votes, against then independent Mr Abbas’ 100,000 and PTI candidate Raja Yasir Humayun’s 48,000.

This time, the PTI fielded Raja Yasir in PP-21, and Raja Tariq Mehmood Afzal in PP-22.

But things fell apart rather suddenly for Mr Abbas after two lawyers from the Chakwal Bar Association filed objections to his nomination papers, and those of his covering candidate and nephew Sardar Aftab Akhtar.

Qazi Umar Ahmed and Malik Zafran Zulfi objected before the returning officer that both candidates had willfully concealed inherited land, a commercial plot in Kallar Kahar, their spouses’ properties and did not have national tax numbers (NTN) despite owning large holdings of agricultural land and serving in public offices including MPA, minister, district nazim and tehsil nazim.

Their objections were rejected by the returning officer, but the lawyers appealed before the election tribunal at the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Rawalpindi bench which rejected both candidates’ papers.

Mr Abbas and Mr Akbar then filed unsuccessful writ petitions before the LHC’s principle seat in Lahore against the tribunal order. Next, both politicians turned to the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and Justice Ejazul Hasan quickly dismissed their appeal.

And thus one of Chakwal’s most influential politicians, a two-time MPA and district nazim, was thrown out of the electoral process. To make matters worse, his party ticket was then awarded to Zulfiqar Ali Khan, PML-N’s candidate in PP-23, and his arch-rival.

Mr Abbas has announced his support for Zulfiqar Ali Khan – without naming him – and appears to see hope in PP-23, where his nephew Sardar Aftab Akbar has a significant chance for victory.

Although Mr Abbas and his aides believe there were hidden hands that did not want to see Mr Abbas as PTI’s candidates, it could simply be that trusted friends who filled his nomination papers made a mistake.

“The men who filled the nomination papers just copied the papers from 2013. At that time, Mr Abbas’ father was alive, and he had scores of cattle but no commercial plot in Kallar Kahar. This time, the situation had changed as Mr Abbas’ father passed away a couple of years ago and subsequently his property was supposed to be mentioned in Mr Abbas’ name while the cattle present in 2013 were sold off shortly after the 2013 election,” a close aide to Mr Abbas told Dawn.

“There was no point in concealing inherited property, as it would not have brought any harm to Mr Abbas if disclosed. This was done inadvertently,” another aide said.

His nomination papers could have been objected to in 2013 on the grounds that Mr Abbas did not have an NTN, but no one came forward at that time.

Then, in 2015, a criminal dispute emerged between advocate Qazi Umar Ahmed and Chaudhry Sarfraz, a front man for Mr Abbas in Padshahan village.

Mr Abbas helped his friend Chaudhry Sarfraz in the case, angering Mr Ahmed. “I filed objections against Mr Abbas’ nomination papers out of that vendetta,” Mr Ahmed told Dawn.

His colleague Malik Zafran Zulfi said he too was vicitimised at the behest of Mr Abbas in a murder case when Mr Abbas was district nazim, as his brother was wrongly involved in the case.

Mr Abbas rejected the allegations.

“It is true that being a friend of Sarfraz I helped him at the local level, but I did nothing unlawful regarding a murder case related to Mr Zafran’s brother,” he said.

He admitted, though, that he should have checked the nomination forms and obtained an NTN.

“But I think this was not a big crime on which my nomination papers could be rejected entirely,” he argued. “Some hidden hand worked behind this.”

However, advocate Iftikhar Haider from the Chakwal Bar Association said Mr Abbas’ nomination papers were supposed to be rejected because he did not qualify due to gaps in his nomination papers.

Former PML-N district president and senior advocate Syed Ziaul Hassan Zaidi called Mr Abbas’ sudden ouster from Chakwal’s electoral politics “unfortunate”.

“He is the sole politician who enjoys a large personal vote bank. He should have been in the area,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2018