JHANG, Sept 19: Rift between political heavyweights having divergent ideologies may affect the Grand National Alliance (GNA) campaign to win national and provincial assembly seats from the Jhang district.

The situation can be controlled if the tug-of-war between PML-QA’s Begum Abida Husain and the Sultan brothers (Hameed and Nazir) of the Millat Party is brought to an end. The two were sworn enemies till very recently — Begum Abida being the central information secretary of the PML-QA and Sahibzada Nazir Sultan a member of the PPP provincial executive council.

Abida’s daughter Sughra Imam and Nazir’s brother Hameed Sultan had contested the district Nazim election in August last year.

Nazir Sultan was still in the PPP folds when Begum Abida finalized the list of candidates and sent it to the party high command for approval. Most of her nominees had already started their election campaign on her assurance. They included Rana Ataullah in NA-91, Saima Akhtar Bharwana, daughter of former provincial industries minister and Jhang district council ex-chairman Akhtar Abbas Bharwana, in NA-90, Nawaz Bharwana and Zafarullah Bharwana in NA-87, Maulana Rehmatullah in NA-86, Faisal Hayat Jaboona, son of ex-MPA Ghazanfar Abbas Jaboona in PP-82, Sohaib Farooq in NA-89, her daughter Sughra Imam in PP-78 and Makhdoom Nasir Abbas Qureshi in PP-83. She was herself a candidate for NA-88, her ancestral constituency.

The only dissenting voices from her group to these otherwise unanimous decisions were raised by Sheikh Waqas Akram, the son of Jhang tehsil Nazim Sheikh Akram in NA-89 and Ghulam Ahmad Gadi, a PML MPA in PP-81, against her nominee Syed Chiragh Akbar. At that time, Nazir Sultan was parting ways with the PPP due to differences with Faisal Saleh Hayat over the issue of party ticket for NA-91 from where Faisal wanted to contest election himself. Nazir wanted the party ticket from NA-91 for his nephew Mehboob Sultan. The PPP high command decided in favour of Faisal and Nazir switched over to his old friend Farooq Leghari’s Millat Party, severing his 14 years association with the PPP. The Millat Party, being a component of the GNA, of which the PML-QA too was a part, had seat adjustment problems with the latter. Both the parties had strong candidates for all 17 national and provincial assembly seats.

Nazir Sultan demanded two NA seats, for himself and his nephew, and four provincial assembly seats. There were other serious contenders for all the seats, making the task of seat adjustment very tough for their respective party high commands. The candidates nominated by Abida Husain had already completed the first round of their campaign, and it was not easy for them to renounce their candidature in favour of the alliance partners. The list of those likely to be sidelined as a result of seat adjustment contained many topnotch politicians, including Abida’s daughter, Sughra. In this complex situation none of the candidates agreed to relinquish their ground. It resulted in defections to other parties like the MMA or the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan. Some others preferred to contest elections as independent candidates. Even Abida Husain could not exert any pressure on her partymen to accommodate the newcomers in their fold. She even failed to settle the conflict between two strong provincial assembly Muslim League candidates in her own NA constituency, putting her own election in serious jeopardy.

Now on all the six National Assembly and most of the Punjab Assembly seats, each GNA candidate faces a strong adversary from the own camp, brightening the prospects for the PPP or the independent candidates.

In NA-86 (Chiniot), PML-QA’s Tahir Ali Shah is a very strong candidate, but a sizable number of his votes will be divided between him and his party rebel Maulana Rehmatullah. The situation is likely to pave the way for Qaisar Sheikh who is a Tehrik-i-Istiqlal nominee.

In NA-87, ex-MPAs Nawaz and Zafarullah are two strong rebel candidates from the Bharwana family. Their votes will be shared by PML-QA nominee Ghulam Bibi Bharwana. PPP’s Syed Asad Hayat will take advantage of the situation as Abida Husain, too, is opposing Ghulam Bibi and supporting Zafarullah whom she wanted to be given the ticket.

In NA-88, there is a straight fight between Abida Husain and Faisal Saleh Hayat. Former PML MPA Ghulam Ahmad Gadi, who is an extremely influential political figure in the constituency, has deserted his party and is supporting Faisal after being denied the party ticket which was awarded to Syed Chiragh Akbar through Abida’s influence. Mr Gadi’s support to Faisal may prove fatal for Abida.

In NA-89, Abida Husain vehemently opposed the grant of a GNA ticket to the extremely strong Millat Party candidate, Sheikh Waqas Akram, who could give tough time to Maulana Azam Tariq. On her advice, the ticket was awarded to Commander Sohaib Farooq (retired), a relatively new comer. Waqas’s nomination papers were rejected by the returning officer and he is waiting for the verdict on his writ petition. Interestingly, Sohaib has withdrawn in favour of Maulana Azam Tariq and has also handed over his election offices to the SSP.

The NA-90 consists of Shorkot city, Cantt and some areas of Jhang tehsil. Here Abida Husain had fielded Saima Akhtar Bharwana before the defection of Nazir Sultan from the PPP. Nazir was given the Millat Party and alliance ticket instead of Saima. She refused to oblige Abida and is contesting election as an independent candidate and expected to give tough time to the GNA nominee. The PPP is also supporting Saima.

In the provincial constituency PP-78, Sughra Imam is having strong opposition in the shape of Nazir Sultan’s candidate Zahoor Sajid. The PP-78 is a part of NA-90.

In NA-91, Rana Ataullah, a retired customs collector, had been campaigning since September 2001 from the PML-QA platform. He took very active part in the presidential referendum and had the party ticket almost in his pocket till the arrival of Nazir Sultan. Initially, he won the battle against Nazir’s nephew Mehboob and got the PML-QA ticket. But a few days later, the ticket was taken away from him and awarded to Mehboob. The aggrieved Rana refused to accept the party verdict and is causing serious damage to Mehboob in a triangular contest in which PPP’s Faisal Saleh Hayat is the third contestant. Abida Husain has a strong group in this constituency which has been divided in supporting Rana Ataullah and Faisal Saleh. Ghazanfar Abbas Jaboona, a former MPA and Abida’s strong ally is also supporting Faisal, who is certain to win in this situation.