MUZAFFARGARH, Nov 30: The city, which was decorated with impressing banners and pictures of PML-Q leaders not more than a month ago, is now giving a bald look after former PML-Q local 'stalwarts' have started defecting to other parties and removing the banners they had installed to win over the hearts of their former political bosses.

It is very much likely that banners and billboards containing slogans and pictures in favour of Pakistan People's Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders will be installed shortly.

To fetch the sympathies of Gen Musharraf and his cronies in the previous set-up, PML-Q's local leaders and parliamentarians had installed banners, hoardings and billboards of their leaders, including Pervaiz Elahi, Shujaat Husain and Moonis Elahi, prominently on former chief minister Pervaiz Elahi's visit to Muzaffargarh and Alipur in October this year.

The PML-Q's popularity and its local leader's loyalty with Gen Musharraf and the Chaudhrys of Gujrat was exposed on Friday when workers of PML-Q defectors, including Hina Rabbani Khar, a former state minister, Qaswar Langrial and Allah Wasaya Leghari alias Chunnoo Leghari, former MPAs, and Senator Amjad Qureshi removed the banners and graffiti they had installed in favour of Pervaiz Elahi and Gen Musharraf from throughout the city.

During his visit to the area, Pervaiz Elahi had seen the city flooded with banners and billboards inscribed with slogans -- 'Pervaiz Elahi ke ham sipahi', 'Pervez Musharraf hamara leader', 'Chaudhry Shujaat, Pervez Elahi ki azmat ko slam', 'Ham Moonis Elahi ke sipahi'. Now these banners are no more shinning on Muzaffargarh's horizon, and one could easily grasp what Pervaiz will be thinking during his next visit to the area in near future.

Before 2002, Ghulam Abbas Qureshi and Malik Rabbani Khar belonged to the PML-N. Now Rabbani Khar has joined the PPP, while Qureshi's son Amjad Qureshi has joined the PML-N.

However, some banners installed by former state minister Shahid Jameel Qureshi are still hanging in the city. Now his brother, Farooq Azam, is trying to get PPP ticket from NA-178, and if he succeeds, the remaining banners in favour of the Chaudhrys are likely to vanish and the banners meant to impress Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif will replace them rather.

In another development, PML-Q's former MPA Imtiaz Aleem Qureshi is also trying to obtain PPP ticket for his son, Imran Qureshi, from PP-256. If he gets the PPP ticket too, the PML-Q is likely to be swept from throughout the district.

Malik Rabbani Khar's servants were seen on Friday removing banners containing slogans 'Pervaiz Elahi Quaid hay, Noor Rabbani Naib hay', 'Prime Minister Pervaiz Elahi Zindabad'.

Similarly, Many banners on Jatoi Road containing "Chunnoo Leghari ka hi Bhai, Moonis Elahi, Moonis Elahi" were now being removed by Chunnoo Leghari's servants.