ISLAMABAD: All nominees of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat swept the provincial elections of the PML-Q after a dissident group boycotted the polls and termed them ‘unconstitutional and unlawful’.

Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and Chaudhry Zaheeruddin were re-elected president and general secretary for Punjab, Amir Muqam and Mushtaq Ghani for the NWFP, Ghous Bakhsh Mehr for president of Sindh, Jam Yousuf for Balochistan and Rizwan Sadiq Khan and Dr Hasan Sarosh president and general secretary for the federal capital.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain supervised the polling in Lahore, while Mushahid Hussain looked after the NWFP polls held in Abbottabad and later flew to Karachi to oversee the polling in Sindh.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, dissident leader Salim Saifullah Khan criticised Chaudhry Shujaat and said he could not become party president for the third time: ‘We have boycotted ‘dummy’ provincial elections. PML-Q is a national party in which the Chaudhrys no longer have a majority, but they are trying to make it their fiefdom.’

Saifullah said a complaint about ‘bogus polls’ had been filed with the Chief Election  Commissioner. In the NWFP, PML-Q held its provincial council session in Abbottabad, instead of Peshawar, because of security concerns.

About 403 council members took part in the elections. Five of the party’s six MNAs from NWFP, five of six MPAs, five district nazims, 16 tehsil nazims and almost all important office-bearers participated in the council meeting.

The provincial council passed seven resolutions one of which empowered Amir Muqam to nominate other office-bearers. Another resolution nominated Chaudhry Shujaat and Mushahid Hussain for the posts of central president and secretary-general of the party.

Another resolution urged the government to start repatriating displaced people to their home-towns in Malakand and Swat and said all returning families should be given at least Rs100,000. The council also urged the government to end loadshedding and curb inflation.

In Lahore, around 95 per cent of 1,020 members of the council took part in the elections.  There are 510 general council members in Sindh, 170 in Balochistan and 425 in the NWFP.

Members of the Punjab General Council assured Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and Chaudhry Zaheeruddin of their support in the central elections of the party to be held on July 20.

In Islamabad, Rizwan Sadiq Khan and Dr Hasan Sarosh were elected as president and general secretary, respectively. –APP

Saleem Shahid adds from Quetta: A split was evident in the Balochistan chapter of the PML-Q when many of its senior leaders boycotted the party election.

The parliamentary group led by MPA Jaffar Mandokhail has been calling upon the central leadership to resolve differences to keep the party united.  ‘We made it clear that we will not participate in any election until differences are removed,’ Mandokhail told Dawn.

Of the 20 PML-Q legislators in the Balochistan assembly, only three members –Mohammad Khan Utmankhail, Mir Shoaib Nowsherwani and Basant Lal Gulshan – participated in the provincial council meeting that endorsed the election of Jam Yousaf.

Senator Tariq Azeem and Suriya Naseem were in Quetta to monitor the election.

However, despite their efforts, presidents of various districts kept themselves away.

Rubina Irfan, provincial minister for parliamentary affairs and secretary-general of the PML-Q women’s wing, rejected the election and said that the meeting which had endorsed the election of provincial president was not representative.