January 05, 2008	Saturday	Zilhaj 25, 1428

KASUR, Jan 4: Former foreign minister Khursheed Mahmood Kasuri of the PML-Q, who is facing another former foreign minister Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali of the PPP, has started luring voters by launching new development projects to counter the mounting sympathies of the general public for PPP after the assassination of its chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Kasuri is also violating the party discipline by supporting an independent candidate instead of PML-Q ticket holder for a provincial slot falling under his constituency NA-140.

In connection with his electioneering, Kasuri visited Gohart Jageer, the native town of Sardar Assef, on Thursday where villagers demanded that they be provided electricity immediately.

On Friday, in sharp contradiction to the announcement of ECP that all development projects should come to a halt after the date of election was announced, Gohart Jageer village received dozens of electricity polls, transformers, wires and other material overnight.

Barkat Ali, a villager, said the voters had been bribed indeed by dispatching electricity installation infrastructure. He said the government should have done it much earlier if it was so sincere with them.

Kasuri’s representative Shoukat Ali Qadri, who is overseeing the installation of electricity, told Dawn that the project was aimed at providing benefit to the general public.

He said the provision of electricity to this village had been promised during the electioneering for 2002, but could not be materialised till the dissolution of the last assemblies. There are around 250 registered voters in this locality.

Kasuri had returned to the National Assembly in the 2002 general elections when Sardar Assef had not participated in the elections.

Kasuri is also violating the PML-Q discipline by supporting independent candidate Ch Shabeer Hussain instead a party’s ticket holder Malik Ahmad Khan for PP-179. Ch Shabeer is from Mandi Usmanwala, which is hometown of his political rival Sardar Assef, and Kasuri wants to utilise Shabeer’s influence in the area to defeat his archrival Sardar Assef.

Scores of development projects, including laying of sewerage pipelining, each worth Rs500,000 are going on in Dhollan, Saeedpur and Chah Dhanwala localities near Khudian which have been launched by Kasur Tehsil Nazim Agha Naveed Hashim Rizvi, who is now an aide to Kasuri, and that too without inviting tenders and other necessary documentation.

According to sources, the tehsil nazim was misusing his authority to help Kasuri win the 2008 general elections and town committee secretaries and other employees were also campaigning for Kasuri.

Rizvi was elected tehsil nazim from the platform of Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, once forged between PPP and PML-N, but later he defected to the PML-Q.

A few days ago, Sardar Assef told a gathering in Khudian to pay homage to Benazir

Bhutto that Rizvi had shaken the trust of PPP by changinghis loyalties, but now the PPP would take revenge from him.