TOBA TEK SINGH, Sept 8: The appointment of former member of the National Assembly (MNA) Chaudhry Amjad Ali Warraich, spouse of Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) MNA Begum Farkhanda Amjad Warraich and brother of PML-Q MPA Chaudhry Bilal Warraich, as the Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC) chairman heralds the changes likely to happen on the political horizon of the district.

Mr Warraich is from Gojra and remained MNA after winning the 2002 elections from NA-92 as PML-Junejo candidate. The runner-up candidate, M Hamza, filed a petition in an election tribunal, saying that Mr Warraich was not a graduate. Then chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry declared him disqualified just two weeks before the dissolution of the National Assembly in 2007. In 2008 elections, his nomination papers were rejected because of the graduation bar.

He again tried his luck in a by-election for PP-59, Samundri, as an independent candidate after the Supreme Court revoked the graduation bar. This time, PPP’s Qasim Zia defeated him. Then came the presidential election, according to a source, and Mr Warraich ‘sold’ the votes of both his MNA wife and MPA brother to Mr Zardari and got the PMDC chairman office.

So far both wife and brother have not joined the PPP, but it seemed that the Warraich group has joined hands with the ruling party. Source added the Warraich group could join the PPP in the near future.

ROBBERY: Robbers shot dead a taxi driver and took away his car near Chuttiana, police said. Two people hired the car from Pirmahal taxi stand for a village of Chuttiana.