MUZAFFARABAD: Sardar Hassan Ibrahim of the Jammu Kashmir Peoples Party (JKPP) clinched victory in by-election for the Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly constituency LA-19 (Poonch-III) in Rawalakot on Sunday, defeating former AJK president and prime minister Sardar Yaqoob Khan of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) by 814 votes.

Ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Sardar Tahir Anwar stood at third position among a total of six candidates.

The seat had fallen vacant on Nov 4 due to death of Sardar Khalid Ibrahim, who was chief of the JKPP and father of the winning candidate.

As the late leader commanded great respect in AJK, there were calls from different quarters after his death that rival parties should avoid fielding their candidates against the JKPP nominee in the by-election.

However, PPP was the first party to announce on Nov 21 that its senior leader Sardar Yaqoob Khan would contest by-election as he did not want to give a “walk-over” to his opponents due to the “peculiar political situation” in the constituency, dominated by Sudhan tribe.

Imitating the PPP, the ruling PML-N also jumped into the fray by launching Sardar Tahir Anwar, a former AJK minister, as its candidate.

According to unofficial results compiled by the election commission from all 169 polling stations by Sunday evening, Hassan Ibrahim obtained 17,590 votes as against 16,776 votes secured by Sardar Yaqoob.

The PML-N candidate scored 10,255 votes. Pro-independence candidate Liaquat Hayat obtained 2,083 votes while two other candidates secured less than 1,000 votes each.

There were a total of 92,427 registered voters in the constituency.

It may be recalled that the late JKPP chief had lost June 2011 election to Sardar Yaqoob Khan of the PPP from this constituency by around 10,000 votes.

After Mr Khan’s elevation as AJK president in August 2011, Mr Ibrahim did not contest by-election which saw Farzana Yaqoob replacing her father in the assembly.

In July 2016 general elections, Mr Ibrahim defeated Ms Yaqoob of the PPP by around 10,000 votes as an ally of the PML-N.

However, within two weeks of general elections, Mr Ibrahim had switched over to opposition benches after developing differences with the PML-N over the latter’s support to PPP in elections against one of the five reserved seats for women and nomination of an “apolitical person” (Sardar Masood Khan) for the president’s office.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2018