MULTAN, Aug 24: Wheeling-dealing for the top tehsil and district slots has been kicked off in southern Punjab where the elections for union councils that form the electoral college were held on Aug 18.

Various factions based either on clans or personalities belonging to the ruling PML are vying for the top slots while the opposition parties are struggling to keep intact whatever support they have won in the partyless polls against all odds.

The political analysts here are certain that in each of the southern Punjab districts the ruling party is set to form its governments. They predict that the factionalism will further blight this house of cards put together under the umbrella of country’s permanent establishment.

Former president Sardar Farooq Ahmed Leghari had merged his Millat Party into the Pakistan Muslim League as was done by Hamid Nasir Chattha, Ijazul Haq and Manzoor Wattoo to dissolve their respective factions of Muslim League. Millat Party had fared well as part of the Leghari-led National Alliance in the last general elections held in October 2002. Sardar Leghari was abroad when the polling was held on Thursday last. Addressing a gathering at his ancestral village on his return, Sardar Leghari reportedly criticized Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and alleged rigging in the polling. He, along with his son federal information technology minister Awais Leghari and cousin MNA Jaffar Leghari, met the President Gen Pervez Musharraf in the federal capital on Wednesday.

Insiders revealed that the pre- and post-election situation and, perhaps, complaints against the provincial leadership of the ruling party were on the meeting’s agenda. It is not a secret that the Legharis have always been keen to have hold over the politics of Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur districts and they have been enjoying political control over these two districts since Sardar Leghari had dissolved the government of the party which had elected him to the presidency.

But the outcome of the Aug 18 polls suggests that the Legharis have lost Rajanpur district to Sardar Nasrullah Dreshak and his provincial finance minister son Hasnain Bahadur Dreshak being evidently backed by the Chaudhris (Pervaiz Elahi and Shujaat Hussain) while in Dera an uphill task is on the cards for them to remain in power. The alliance formed between former federal minister Maqsood Leghari and the PML-N Punjab president former governor Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa (Leghari-Khosa alliance) has, according to the unofficial results, won in almost as many UCs as are won by the Legharis. Maqsood Leghari is said to be enjoying cordial relations with Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and the provincial finance minister has reportedly contacted the people under his influence in Dera to muster support for the Leghari-Khosa alliance in the battle for top district slot. Rumours are that Sardar Khosa’s son and former Dera district council chairman Saifuddin Khosa might join the ruling PML after being wooed by Sardar Dreshak.

Apart from the Legharis, a number of ruling party MPs and federal minister Jehangir Tareen have also cried foul in the elections in Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan, respectively. The PML MPs from Bahawalpur alleged rigging in the polls even in a press conference called only to express their resentment.

The election process has also come under question viz-a-viz conduct of the officials assigned the polling duty since a woman from Khanewal district has made public transcript of her ‘romantic’ conversation allegedly with a returning officer.

Addressing a press conference, she accused the RO of harassing her sexually. She claimed that she was present at a polling station when the RO came there and ordered the police to bundle her into his vehicle under the charge of casting bogus vote. Later, he took her to his office and then to his official residence. He let her go after keeping several hours in ‘illegal confinement’ only on the promise that she would meet him next time, she told the newsmen in Multan while distributing video recording of her rendezvous at a railway station near the RO’s official residence on night between Aug 20 and 21. “That was a managed meeting only to expose the senior election official,” she said.

In the recorded telephonic conversation, the RO is telling the woman that he had cleared a candidate for lady councillor despite that she was losing. The woman on other side of the telephone tells him that the lady councillor can pay only Rs 15,000 while he has demanded Rs 20,000.

The Khanewal district returning officer has directed the RO to submit a written reply in his defence while the woman has also been summoned to appear along with all the evidence against him (the RO) on Sept 2.