THERE has never been a shortage of domains to apply the ‘Punjab versus the rest’ argument in the national context. Regardless of which side of the divide one happens to be, there is no denying the existence of the debate. It has been, and is, very much there. Elections 2013 are no different. At least the campaigning was no different.

While private jets and choppers zoomed past each other in Punjab skies, all that was seen in the skies of ‘the rest’ of Pakistan was the odd Army helicopter on surveillance missions. This is how lopsided the campaigning was, both politically and financially.

A commercial chopper on an average costs $2,000 to Rs.2 million per hour. A small 7-10-seat commercial plane roughly costs twice as much. There may not be many available in the country, but the few private companies that deal in such high-cost deals have done capacity business over the last couple of weeks, amounting to millions of rupees.

Add to it the planes owned by some of the tycoons who are said to have been at the royal service of one party chief or the other, work out the total cost, and then think about questioning the validity of the ECP ceiling of Rs1.5 million per NA constituency and one million rupees for a provincial assembly seat. You sure have better things to do, so forget the maths, but do consider the fact that all this expenditure, OK, fine, most of it, took place in Punjab.

‘The rest’ probably spent as much money, perhaps even more, but either on protecting lives or burying the dead. The comment is a bit morbid, but this is what one heard on a Karachi street. “The major election expenditure this time round has been on buying the coffin, the shroud, a place in the graveyard and then the post-burial socio-religious commitments.”

A bit exaggerated it may sound to some ears, but those who happen to live somewhere in ‘the rest’ of Pakistan, not necessarily in Karachi though, will be able to relate to the sentiment.

With no major rallies and a much muted, almost silent, campaign in the largest city of the country, it is difficult to work out the cost of electioneering in Karachi. A somewhat irritated businessman added a new dimension to the discussion. “You want the cost of elections? It’s so easy. I tell you. It is worth Rs30 billion,” he said.

Rs30 billion? “Of course. A day of strike in the city costs Rs5-6 billion. Count the number of Youm-e-Soug (Day of Mourning) the city has had since the election process started and you would know what I am saying,” he said … with some degree of justification and some level of indecency that indicated a frustrated mindset.

The happenings in Punjab, however, do have a silver lining. The tempo built up by the PML-N and the PTI is bound to reflect in the voter turnout. Even Imran Khan’s unfortunate mishap and the resultant injury caused a minor sympathy wave that just might bring the floaters skirting around the idea of being a PTI voter to actually be one. They may not all add up to matter in terms of results, but a good showing will augur well for the future.

Other than that, it has been a gloomy election drive in ‘the rest’ of Pakistan. One example would suffice. The Election Commission routinely hires government servants for election duty. People generally try to avoid such assignments for various reasons. This time round, as one State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) official narrated, those who tried to stay away were served with summons to report to the police station concerned “within an hour of the receipt of notice” or they will be arrested.

The security threat is so real that without an equally real threat of arrest, the ECP would have struggled to have its polling stations manned and staffed.

Caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, the plight of the polling staff is palpable. As the SBP fellow described, one of the officers who got posting orders to an area designated as ‘sensitive’ apparently lost his rationality for a while. He picked up the phone and started dialling friends and foes, seeking their forgiveness as he didn’t want to die without settling all his affairs.

His mental status may well be imagined by the simple fact that he asked one of his friends to “take care of my wife when I am gone … and if possible, think of marrying her as she has no one to fall back on”. The friend came over, calmed him down and then explained that in any case he was not, and would not be, interested in marrying a mother of six children!

In Punjab, it would be difficult to empathise with the emotional imbalance an election-day posting may cause, but in ‘the rest’ of Pakistan, people do understand. This is how different the two elections campaigns have been both politically and financially.