TOBA TEK SINGH: As in the 2013 general elections, the PPP has failed to nominate a candidate in PP-118 for the July 25 polls in the district.

In 2013, there were seven provincial assembly seats here, but the district lost one following the 2017 delimitation.

In the previous general elections, the PPP had fielded candidates for six provincial assembly seats. In PP-84 (Gojra rural), the party’s candidate was Begum Sarwat Khalid Malik who polled 12,213 votes. She is the wife of former provincial minister Khalid Malik. In PP-85 (Gojra city), former provincial revenue minister Haji Muhammad Ishaq (6,175 votes), PP-86 (Toba city) late Amer Jabbar Chaudhry (3,990 votes), PP-88 retired Capt Saadat Husnain Kharal (17,642 votes), PP-89 former international hockey player Rana Muhammad Shafique (26,641 votes) and in PP-90, the PPP candidate was late Amjad Hussain Khalid (5,714 votes).

For the upcoming elections, the party PPP had once again fielded Begum Sarwat Khalid Malik for PP-84 (now PP-118), but she and her husband quit the party and joined PTI, leaving the PPP without a candidate for this constituency.

For PP-85 (now PP-119), the PPP fielded its previous candidate Haji Ishaq; PP-86 (now PP-121) Muhammad Zulfiqar Ali, the elder brother of late Amer Jabbar Chaudhry; PP-87 (now PP-120), new entrant to politics Zafar Farooq – the party had not fielded any candidate for this seat in the 2013 polls; PP-88 (now PP-122) party activist Chaudhry Zahoorul Haq, who replaced last elections’ nominee retired Capt Kharal; and PP-89 (now PP-123), new entrant to electoral politics, Muhammad Arif of Chak-684 GB, Kamalia as the previous candidate Rana Shafique was contesting as an independent candidate.

Haji Ishaq is also contesting for NA-111 besides PP-119, as he did in 2013. However, observers say that he was not campaigning as vigorously in the National Assembly constituency as he was in the provincial assembly one.

PPP leader Neelum Jabbar Chaudhry, who is contesting for NA-112, has launched an impressive campaign in her constituency. She claimed to have awakened the party voters, especially women, in the 2008 elections as a result of which she had won the seat. She was going to each and locality to mobilise women and hoped she would clinch the seat again.

However, observers are of the view that the PPP’s morale was lower than it was in 2008 and 2013, so there was little chance that Neelum could compete with the contestants of PML-N and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) -- Junaid Anwar Chaudhry and Chaudhry Muhammad Ashfaq, respectively. But it was expected that she would dent the PTI vote bank. Chaudhry Ashfaq had gained majority of the PPP votes in 2013 election as he had remained an MNA and MPA from the party in the past.

For NA-113, the PPP has fielded old worker Rana Nasim Iqbal Kodha.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2018