GUJRANWALA, Jan 30: As most of the candidates of elections try to win voters’ favour through bragging their past performance, using cast card or vowing party votes, one candidate for a National Assembly seat seeks votes for his being “triumphant of marathon race”.

Qazi Hameedullah, former member of the National Assembly from the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, is candidate for NA-96, Gujranwala. He hit the headlines in 2005 for disrupting a mixed race in the city. This time, he has got published his posters and pamphlets inscribed with ‘Vote for the triumphant of marathon race’.

Mr Hameed with apolitical background and cleric, made to the National Assembly after defeating Pakistan People’s Party’s Khwaja Saleh and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Khurram Dastgir in 2002 elections. People from the constituency say they voted for the cleric because they were fed up with old faces.

After his victory, the MNA set a circus on fire on the grounds that a gambling den was being run in the circus. Mr Hameed won fame and cheers from the local people for “purging the city from immoral acts” and challenging the “impotent law”. The government did not take any action against the cleric for burning the commercial circus

On April 3, 2005, deceased minister Zil-e-Huma was leading a mixed marathon race near Jinnah Stadium when the MNA accompanied by his supporters attacked the participants and beat women participants. Mr Hameed boasted that he had “contained devil”.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Hameed said that he did not stop marathon race but a vulgar act and MMA activists assaulted police not female participants. He claims that he had disrupted the race on the “request of many students of women colleges”.

“I used this issue as my core slogan for the Feb 18 polls because despite many other public works I conducted, the marathon issue was a famous incident and our future politics aims at crusading against vulgarity,” he said.

“Vulgarity is against the spirit of Islam and citizens of this religious city will elect the one having no embezzlement or corruption allegations against him.” He claims the MMA is not against healthy activities of females which are allowed in Islam as well.

But a survey carried out by Dawn shows that people are not impressed by the performance of the MMA candidate even though they do not condemn him for his anti-marathon race stance. People say that MMA’s seat adjustment with the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) affected his vote bank as the PML-Q’s graph went down after the assassination of former PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Interestingly, no other candidate has taken up the MMA’s candidate’s anti-marathon act in his poll campaign as they think that their favour to mixed race can offend their male voters.

Muhammad Adil, a social worker, told Dawn that even though he had not met the Qazi in 2002, he went door-to-door begging votes for him. He said at that time he had hoped the MMA would do something better for the city but in vain. Now, the media has tarnished the image of the MMA too bad to consider its candidates in election 2008, he said.

“Qazi Hameed never voiced against unjust with Gujranwala for shifting city projects to other districts and towns,” Adil said. He said a cardiac centre, a university, a cadet college and the regional cricket selection centre had been built in other cities much smaller than Gujranwala.

Tabassum, Shazia and Ayesha, students of Model Town Degree College Gujranwala, told Dawn that they had participated in the 2005 marathon race wherein MMA activists had beaten up the female participants. They said the experience tarnished their confidence and now they would not take part in any outdoor game ever.

But they think that the Qazi’s act against women would not affect his vote bank.

“Although women are against him, but it will not affect his male vote bank because many males think his disruption of the race was a moral act,” said Shazia.