BAHAWALPUR: Former PML-N MPA Samiullah Chaudhry, now in the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) after the merger of the Janubi Punjab Sooba Mahaz, is flexing his muscles to contest the election from NA-170 against PML-N’s Baleeghur Rehman.

Mr Chaudhry along with his associates like Bahawalpur mayor Aqeel Najam Hashmi and others is working to contest the seat.

He said he had applied for PTI ticket to contest for NA-171. PML-N’s likely choice for the seat is Mr Rehman, who has won the seat in 2008 and 2013 elections.

In the 2013 election, former railway minister Farooq Azam Malik from the platform of Nawab Salahuddin Abbasi’s (now defunct) Bahawalpur National Awami Party, which now stood merged with PTI, had given a tough fight but lost by a margin of few thousand votes.

Due to BNAP’s merger with the PTI, Mr Malik was weighing his options to contest the July election.

Mr Chaudhry’s wife, former MPA Sumera Samiullah, has also applied for a PTI ticket for NA-170 besides women’s reserved seats. PTI activists Azra Sheikh has also applied for the party ticket for NA-170. Ms Sheikh was a PPP candidate in 2013 for a general provincial seat against PML-N’s Iqbal Channar.

Former parliamentarian Syed Tabish Alwari has also applied for PML-N ticket for NA-170 and asked the leadership to give importance to the old guards of the party.

Former federal minister Riaz Peerzada, who has been criticising PML-N policies in the last year after Supreme Court verdict in the Panama Leaks, says he is very much with the PML-N leadership and he will contest the July 25 election from NA-171 as a PML-N candidate. His nephew Kazim Ali Peerzada and old companion Muhammad Afzal Gill, both former MPAs, will be candidates for PP-247 and PP-248.

Former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif has visited the senior Peerzada’s residence last month at the inaugural ceremony of Bahawalpur-Hasilpur Road. On the occasion, Mr Peerzada said he did not like to leave a party when it was in the lurch. Though he had declined to contest the 2018 election, but Mr Sharif declared Mr Peerzada their candidate for the next election.

Mr Peerzada is likely to face Naeem Iqbal Warraich as the PTI candidate. In the last five years, Mr Warraich has been active in the constituency.

KILLS MOTHER: Muhammad Qasim (18) allegedly strangled his stepmother Sumera over domestic issues in Daha village in the jurisdiction of the Qaimpur police near Hasilpur on Saturday.

Police arrested the accused and registered a first information report against him. The body was shifted to the Hasilpur Tehsil Headquarters Hospital for a postmortem examination.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2018