THATTA, May 24: People fear they will have to bear the brunt of friction in the days ahead between the Shirazis and the Malkanis, two influential political families, who had earlier joined hands to keep the Pakistan Peoples Party at bay in election and parted ways soon after snatching electoral victory.

Political workers and members of civil society say the families going in opposite directions — the Shirazis joining the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Malkanis the Pakistan Peoples Party — may spur the start of confrontational politics at the cost of well-being of the common man.

Of the two National Assembly and five provincial assembly seats up for grabs in the district, the PPP could manage to win only one each of the NA and PA seats. The rest of five seats were grabbed by the Shirazi group, of which the Malkanis were a part, who contested as independent candidates.

People see the Shirazis’ move as they joined the PPP well before election and quit it just days before the May 11 polls to contest as independent candidates as a well-managed risk by which they wanted to prove their mettle.

Although the Shirazis claim misbehaviour by party workers and local leadership of the PPP during the election campaign and on the eve of the 37th death anniversary of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Thatta as a major reason for their abrupt exit, sources told Dawn that the Shirazis had made up their mind to part ways with the PPP after they were tipped off by their sources about the PML-N’s expected rise to power in the centre.

The sources said that Mohammad Ali Malkani, an ally of the Shirazis who had negotiated the Shirazis joining the PPP with Faryal Talpur, sister of President Asif Ali Zardari, did not first agree to the decision to contest polls as independent candidates but the Shirazis persuaded him by saying he was free to make whatever decision he liked after winning the election.

Eventually, the Shirazis recently joined the PML-N while their former ally Mohammad Ali Malkani, former adviser to chief minister Sindh, and Ghulam Qadir Malkani joined the PPP after winning seats.

The PPP which suffered a shock by an abrupt exit of the Shirazis recovered soon and plunged into the election campaign but it was in for another big shock when the final results came out.

Former Sindh minister for culture Sassui Palijo, who suffered defeat on PS-85 by 850 votes against the Shirazi group’s Syed Amir Hyder Shah and applied for a vote recount, was finally declared a loser by merely 408 votes.

On Friday, the Sindh High Court extended the stay on the issuance of a notification of the result of the winning candidate for the PS-85 Thatta seat.

The PPP’s Hameed Soomro had also sought a vote recount of PS-84 which was won by Syed Aijaz Ali Shah Shirazi but it did not help him either as the recount showed Syed Aijaz winning with 40,130 votes and Mr Soomro as his runner-up with 39,811 votes.

Mr Soomro announced he would move court because, he argued, about 50 bags of ballet papers were found unsealed during the recount.

The only NA seat the PPP won in the district is also in the doldrums as its MNA-elect on NA-237 (Thatta-1) Sadiq Ali Memon who was disqualified by the Sindh High Court two days before election but was later allowed to contest till a final decision came on his appeal in Supreme Court, now stands disqualified as the apex court has also upheld the SHC verdict.

The court has left it to the ECP to decide either to conduct a by-election on the seat or to declare the runner-up candidate with the second highest number of votes, Syed Riaz Hussain Shah Shirazi, as the winner.

Thatta’s electorate believes if the PPP and Shirazis indulge in a tug-of-war then the fate of their district will further become bleak. They hope Mian Nawaz Sharif will keep his word on constructing the Keti Bunder port, thermal power station, motorway and development of the irrigation system in this cyclone-hit and flood-affected district as well as release of required quantum of water downstream the Indus river. They have also pinned hopes on victory of Awais Muzaffar, widely believed to be foster brother of President Asif Ali Zardari, from PS-88 and expect him to bring prosperity to the misery-stricken population of Thatta.