MULTAN, Oct 13: Labelled as a breeding ground for religious extremism, southern Punjab has on the contrary returned only three MMA candidates and that, too, against provincial assembly seats.

The southern districts of the Punjab — Multan, Khanewal, Lodhran, Sahiwal, Pakpattan, Vehari, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh, Layyah, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan — have 50 NA and 104 PA constituencies. However, none of the MMA candidates could be elected MNA from this part of the province.

Two of the three MMA seats, from the remote Layyah district, have been won by Asghar Ali Gujjar. But his success on two PA seats is the outcome of his local alliance with Niaz Ahmed Jakharr of PPP and Sahibzada Faizul Hasan of PML-N.

Gujjar’s forte is the status he enjoys as the leader of non-Seraiki settler communities residing in Layyah district. Therefore, both Jakharr and Sahibzada wanted to capitalize his popularity among settlers to ensure their own victories from NA-182 and NA-181, respectively.

Both PPP and PML-N did not field candidates against Asghar Gujjar in PP-264 while in PP-266 PML-N though fielded a candidate against Gujjar but he did not campaign at all. Gujjar and Jakharr came out as the victorious but the adjustment could not work for Sahibzada.

The third MMA seat in South Punjab is won by Dr Syed Waseem Akhtar in Bahawalpur (PP-272). Analysts attribute his success more to his humane personality rather than any wave of the pro-Taliban sentiments.

Those who labelled southern Punjab as a religiously extremist area mostly rest their arguments in the backdrop of some 1,731 religious schools working in the area, of them, as many as 654 belong to pro-Taliban Deobandi school of thought.

Moreover, the rise of terrorism on the lines of sectarian strife in this part of the country gives weight to the assumption that South Punjab is the next station of fundamentalists after north-western part of the country.

But, a bird eye view of the votes polled to the MMA candidates in South Punjab on Oct 10 does not suggest that the alliance of six religio-political parties has any noticeable following among the electorate. On majority of the NA and PA seats, the MMA candidates were lagging behind PML-Q, PPP, PML-N and National Alliance nominees.

Being the agricultural heartland of the country, South Punjab mainly comprised the feudal-dominated rural areas where the role of Mullah is confined to the mosque and to some extent to perform religious rituals. The MMA candidates polled more votes in urban areas as compared to rural part of southern Punjab.

Moreover, a handful of gun-totting blood thirsty extremists do not represent the tolerant rural culture of the south and the killings of these ‘most wanted’ fugitives in the staged encounters after the U-turn on Afghan policy has raised many questions about the ‘hands’ that have been pulling strings.