JHANG, March 27: Nine union councils in the district are set to elect their Nazims in the bypolls on Saturday. Of the 128 union councils in Jhang, nine are going to elect their Nazims - four in Jhang tehsil , three in Chiniot and one each in Shorkot and Ahmadpur Sial tehsils.

These slots were vacated by the Nazims, who tried their luck in the general elections held in October 2002.

While six union councils in the rural areas are unlikely to have any significant impact on the district's political scenario, three in the Jhang (defunct) municipality area, which is a part of NA-89 (once occupied by Millat-i-Islamia leader Maulana Azam Tariq and has been lying vacant since his assassination), is a centre of attention of the provincial analysts.

The result of these three union councils is believed to be an indicator of the trend of the electorate in the National Assembly constituency. The three union councils - 88 (Gohar Shah), 89 (Civil Lines), and 97 (Satellite Town) - were vacated in 2002 by Khalid Sargana and Capt Sohaib Farooq (retired) of the Millat-i-Islamia, and Sheikh Waqar Ahmad of Sheikh Akram group, who later joined the PPP (Parliamentarian) to contest the provincial assembly elections.

Of them, only Khalid Sargana became an MPA while Capt Sohaib didn't contest the election, as Maulana Tariq favoured Mr Sargana. Sheikh Waqar Ahmad lost to Mr Sargana by a huge margin.

The three union councils, two of which were vacated by the MP Nazims and one by a Sheikh Akram's nominee, are now witnessing a neck to neck contest, as all the major anti-MP forces in the city have united to support consensus candidates.

In this regard a meeting of the leaders of various groups was held at the residence of Syed Asad Hayat, which was attended by Sheikh Akram, Dr Abdul Hasan of Jammat-i-Islami, Arfah Majeed of Pakistan Awami Tehrik and Sheikh Waqar Ahmad of PPP. They decided to support consensus candidates in all three union councils and withdraw the weaker candidates to avoid distribution of anti-MP votebank.

As a result, eight candidates withdrew their candidature from the contest.

Interestingly, the PPP has failed to field a candidate even on the seat vacated by Sheikh Waqar Ahmad, who contested the provincial assembly election, due to cracks in the city set-up. The party activists are seen campaigning for the candidates of other political parties.