LAHORE: Gujrat has everything that makes an election in rural Punjab – money, guns, police, thuggery, nazims, biradaris, and family influence. Add the name of Chaudhry Wajahat Husain to this combination and you have a compelling feeling of insecurity and fear pervading the population across the two national assembly constituencies – NA-104 (Gujrat City) and NA-105 (Jalalpur Jattan). This feeling intensifies as you move deeper into the rural parts of the district.
Try to talk Gujrat’s politics and the Jan 8 elections to the people and they would refuse to be dragged into a long conversation. The feeling of an unknown terror overtakes most of them and many would even start looking around if any one overheard the conversation. It takes quite a while and effort before somebody would begin talking, though very cautiously and without being very straightforward. Those who talk don’t give their names. They just don’t trust you.
“You tell me who you want me to vote for?,” asked a middle-aged man at a roadside dhaba in Jalalpur Jattan, where Wajahat is facing his traditional rival from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Nawabzada Ghazanfar Gul. Ghazanfar defeated Wajahat’s elder brother and Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in 1993. He lost his ancestral constituency to Shujaat’s second cousin in 1997 and to Wajahat in 2002 by a big margin.
“If the polling is held in a fear-free environment, we would vote for Ghazanfar Gul,” the man opened up a bit. “But that is not going to happen. Gul’s supporters and voters have already been told to stay away from the booths on the polling day for the sake of ‘posterity’.”
“Why are you so afraid? Has he ever hurt you?,” we asked. “When the PML-Q candidate travels around the constituency, he has police trucks leading the way and several jeeps full of armed men in toe. That is enough to scare the people,” replied another man as he prepared to eat his lunch. “You can fight the thugs, but you cannot fight police.”
Wajahat denied ever having terrorised the people, but he was not very keen on changing public perception about him either.
As we move about the city, we heard a number of stories of coercion and intimidation of opponents by the Chaudhry family in the last five years when they ruled the province. The Chaudhrys unleashed a reign of terror in this city to wipe out their opposition, many people told us.
“The police and administration have been working for them like their slaves,” a fruit seller said. Gujrat Nazim Chaudhry Shafaat Husain, the youngest brother of Shujaat, and other tehsil and union nazims are alleged to have openly been supporting the PML-Q candidates, who, bar a couple of men standing for the Punjab Assembly, happen to be from the Chaudhry family. This is in violation of the restrictions imposed by the Election Commission of Pakistan on the nazims, police and administration.
“Unless we have a neutral administration and police in the city or we somehow infuse confidence in our voters and remove the fear, the PPP is not going to win. Polling agents and voters would not turn up at the booths on the polling day unless they have confidence that we could and would protect them. Our candidates must understand that,” says Gujrat PPP secretary Fakhar Paganwala. His family is known in the city to be among the few who could stand up to the powerful opponents and prevent them from stealing the ballot.
At least Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, who has won only the 1993 election and lost all others to Shujaat from Gujrat City since 1990, seems to have got the point. As the report of gunshots rant the air during an election meeting of his at Sook Kalan, a village near Gujrat, he whispered in my ear: “They resort to firing to scare their opponents, intimidate the people; we are doing so to inspire confidence in our voters, to instil a sense of protection in them, so that they turn up to cast their votes.”
“We are sharif (decent) people. We don’t believe in guns. But if they tried to intimidate us, we shall answer them in the same coin,” he told a charged crowd of over 600 people. “Stand up to the Chaudhrys,” he urged them. “They cannot face you.” His message was clear and straight: the PPP is ready to take on the Chaudhrys on and before the polling day whatever it takes.
Ghazanfar Gul too is ready to ‘protect’ his voters and supporters and not let his opponents destroy his chances. “I will do whatever I can to protect these poor people from the goondaism (thuggery),” he told us as he walked along with his armed guards through a narrow bazaar of Daulatanagar, some 20 kilometres east of Gujrat city.
Electioneering in Gujrat is in full swing. The PML-Q flags and large billboards featuring Shujaat, his cousin Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi – who has ruled Punjab as chief minister for five years and is now vying for the Prime Minister House in Islamabad – and others from the family greeted us. All the billboards, showing Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s father who was slain in the early 1980s, have been put up by builders, contractors and realtors. “Who else has the money but they. They have made money in the last few years,” said Wajahat. “Our position this time is better than it was in 2002 since we have undertaken so much development work in the interim. We have also developed a party vote-bank.”
Some development work was visible, not so much the party vote though.
The absence of PML-N in Gujrat was felt pretty strongly. No wall chalking, banner, or poster of the PML-N was to be seen anywhere. “The Chaudhrys have effectively wiped out the PML-Nawaz over the years. The contest for the Jan 8 elections will be two-way, between the PML-Q and the PPP,” said a local journalist.
The PPP was visible occasionally in the shape of party flags and banners hung by its candidates. Its workers alleged that the police and local government staff had removed the PPP flags and banners of its candidates from various parts of the city. Some said the party candidates were reluctant to spend money. Others said the PPP men fighting the election could not match or even come close to the Chaudhrys when it came to spending on election. The PPP candidates thought that a silent ‘revolution’ was cooking up in Gujrat against the alleged highhandedness of the Chaudhrys and their “goons” in Gujrat, which will ultimately turn the tables in their favour on the polling day. Some of them felt that the upcoming election will throw up some surprises for the Chaudhry family that was hoping to form its government both in Islamabad and Lahore after the elections. Many in the PPP were banking on the possible suspension of local governments and removal of the bar on its leader Benazir Bhutto from becoming prime minister for a third term as it would change the party’s perception among the voters.
“That is absurd. Even if that happens over the next few days, the Chaudhrys will steal the election from us at the end of the day,” a local PPP leader, who asked not to be identified because of obvious reasons, said. “Unless this so-called silent revolution is turned into an open revolt against the Chaudhrys we should forget about defeating the Chaudhrys.”
