GUJRAT: Major political rivals -- PML-N and PTI -- face a complicated situation in Jhelum as the local rank and file is up in arms against official nominees.

The worst scenario for both the parties is in NA-66 (Dina-Sohawa) where PTI has fielded former Jhelum district Nazim Chaudhry Farrukh Altaf whereas PML-N has nominated ex-MPA Nadeem Khadim Gurmala.

Former PML-N MPA from Sohawa Chaudhry Saqlain who was the PTI candidate from this seat in 2013 and remained runners-up securing some 63,000 votes, has formally announced to contest as an independent candidate from NA-66 after PTI refused him the ticket and nominated Altaf, who was previously a PML-Q candidate and bagged some 37,000 votes.

Mr Saqlain claims to have the support of local workers of different parties, particularly the ideological workers of the PTI.

Criticizing the party decision, he said Imran Khan would always label Farrukh Altaf, a cousin of Fawad Chaudhry, as the most corrupt district Nazim but surprisingly he had now awarded him the party ticket. He said as far as Fawad Chaudhry was close to Imran Khan, the rift between Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jahangir Tareen would never end.

He vowed to field an independent panel across the Jhelum district to resist the “imposition of wrong decisions” on the people of Jhelum.

The PML-N too faces an identical situation as a strong group of party’s former lawmakers in NA-66, including that of Mehr Fayaz, the PML-N ticket holder from PP-25 (Dina-Sohawa), Saeed Chaudhry and Sheikh Tanveer, has been opposing the party’s nominated candidate Nadeem Khadim Gurmala. They have been persuading the party leadership not to award two tickets to Gurmala family.

Apart from Nadeem Khadim, his maternal uncle Chaudhry Laal Khan, also a former MPA, has been awarded the PML-N ticket from PP-26 that has been an actual cause of rift among the party leaders in Jhelum.

It is reliably learnt that PML-N nominee from PP-25 Mr Fayaz has been in contact with independent candidate Chaudhry Saqlain as well as Farrukh Altaf due to his reservations on the candidature of Mr Gurmala who actually belongs to the Gujjar clan whereas all three aforementioned figures (Farrukh, Saqlain and Fayaz) are from Jutt clan.

“Since the party has also ignored the recently retired MPA Raja Awais Khalid from Sohawa due to the reduction of PA seats of the district from four to three, the role of Fayaz, said to be annoyed with the Gurmalas, is very important in PP-25 and it may cost the party the NA seat as well, says a local analyst.

He said though Farrukh Altaf too faced the same situation due to Saqlain’s contesting the elections as independent, opposition of Gurmalas by Fayaz as well as the angry Raja Awais Khalid group’s votes belonging to Rajput clan may harm the PML-N cause.

A local PML-N worker from Dina told Dawn that the senior party leadership should take notice of the situation in NA-66 otherwise the party might lose one of its secure seats in Punjab.

Meanwhile, the PTI has awarded two tickets to its spokesman Fawad Chaudhary in two different constituencies, including NA-67 (Pind Daden Khan-Jalalpur Sharif-Khewra) as well as PP-27 (Pind Daden Khan) as a PML-Q man Abid Ashraf Jutana who was earlier in the race for being the joint candidate of PML-Q and PTI on PP 27, has withdrawn his nomination papers.

Mr Chaudhry of PTI is up against ex-PML-N MNA Nawabzada Raja Matloob Mehdi in NA 67 and Nasir Lilla of PML-N in PP 27.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2018