GUJRAT, Sept 24: Though Chaudhry Ahmed Saeed has not been in active politics for the last almost two decades, he still commands respect and has following among political circles here.

With his joining, the PML-N has gained a much-needed strength to counter the Chaudhrys in Gujrat, say political observers here.

The Pakistan People’s Party on the other hand is losing its ground, especially in Gujrat tehsil, as strong factions of its local groups like the Nawabzada family and Servis group have parted their ways in the last few days. A good number of its diehard workers have already left the party in the wake of the PPP-PML-Q coalition.

Most of the defections in the PPP have happened in the constituency of Federal Minister for Water and Power Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar. And now it is Mukhtar’s elder brother who had actually anchored his (Mukhtar’s) political career by launching him as a PPP candidate back in 1990 general elections against Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, has joined the opposite camp.

Differences cropped up between the two brothers during the 1993-96 tenure of the PPP government when Mr Mukhtar was the federal commerce minister in the cabinet of Benazir Bhutto. Due to these differences on political as well as other matters with his younger brother, Chaudhry Ahmed Saeed who had actually launched his Servis group in the local politics back in 1975 and had also been elected as the member of the Punjab Assembly from the Gujrat city’s constituency in the 1977 elections on the PPP ticket, quit active politics and started looking after the family business in Lahore.

Ahmed Saeed’s Servis group nominees often won the election of the local bodies and became the chairmen of the Gujrat Municipal Committee in the late 70s and throughout 80s. Saeed was made the chairman of the Agricultural Development Bank in 1988 by the then premier Benazir Bhutto. He remained in the office till the 1990 ouster of the BB’s government and due to that two years government assignment, he could not contest the general elections.

Ahmed Saeed again came into the limelight when his college days friend Pervez Musharraf, the then chief executive of Pakistan, appointed him first as the managing director and later as the chairman of the Pakistan International Airlines (2000 to 2005).

When he left PIA, Musharraf offered him a Senate ticket but he refused to contest the elections due to the reported opposition of the Chaudhrys who had been at the helm of affairs at that time.

The PML-N leadership which has been persuading Saeed for the last one year to join their party, finally succeeded in their efforts. The move has put Ahmed Mukhtar’s political career at stake not only in his constituency but also in the PPP where he is considered a close aide of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Sources in the Servis group and PML-N say since Ahmed Saeed is not in better health, he (Saeed) can field any of his two sons -- Umar Saeed and Arif Saeed -- as the PML-N nominee from NA 105.

Talking to Dawn however, Ahmed Saeed said his sons were least interested in politics as they were too busy in family business.

He said as far as his contesting the elections was concerned, he had asked the PML-N leadership that he was not in good health but a final decision would be taken when the election schedule was announced.

Asked why he preferred to join the PML-N, he said that his family’s relationship with the Sharif family was not new as his father Chaudhry Muhammad Hussain and Mian Muhammad Sharif had been friends. He said he too had cordial relations with the Sharifs. Moreover, he considered the Nawaz League a better option in prevailing politics.

Saeed said he would work for the PML-N in Gujrat where he always had links in the local politics.