CHAKWAL, Feb 15: The Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q), which ruled the roost from 2001 to 2007, has girded its loins to regain its lost ground in the district of Chakwal.

In this regard, Chaudhry Pervez Ilahi, the PML-Q Punjab chief and the deputy prime minister, is visiting Talagang on Sunday.

He will be accompanied by his sons - Chaudhry Moonis Ilahi and Chaudhry Rasiq Ilahi - and Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed.

The deputy prime minister will inaugurate a gas supply project which has been completed in the Talagang city.

After this, he is scheduled to address a public meeting at the ground of Government Degree College, Talagang.

When PML-Q was formed during the Musharraf regime, some heavyweight politicians from Chakwal joined the party. Among those were Sardar Ghulam Abbas, a two-time district nazim, General (retired) Abdul Majid Malik, who was elected MNA for five consecutive terms since 1985 from the platform of PML-N, Malik Aslam Sethi, Raja Munawar, Sardar Mansoor Hayat Tamman and Sardar Khurram Nawab Khan.

Gen Majid’s nephew Major (retired) Tahir Iqbal became MNA on the PML-Q ticket in 2002 from NA-60 while Malik Aslam Sethi’s son Malik Tanvir Aslam became MPA from PP-21. Sardar Faiz Tamman, who won election in 2002 as an independent candidate, also joined the party after becoming MNA.

However, when the Sharif brothers returned from Saudi Arabia after ending their self-exile in 2008, Gen Majid and Aslam Sethi switched to the PML-N. Sardar Mansoor Hayat Tamman left the PML-Q in 2008 after the party gave ticket to Chaudhry Pervez Ilahi for NA-61. Sardar Faiz Tamman also parted ways with Pervez Ilahi and defeated him in NA-61 in 2008 elections under the banner of PML-N.

Mr Faiz Tamman is now an aspirant for the ticket of the National Assembly from PTI’s platform. The blow came from Sardar Ghulam Abbas who was a close aide of both Pervez Ilahi and Gen Musharraf when he joined the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf in November 2011 only to quit it hardly after a year.

These days, Mr Abbas is contemplating what party he should join. Raja Munawar, whose daughter Maha Tareen Raja, served as a PML-Q MPA, has now joined the PTI.

Though the PML-Q lost its grounds in the district, one man in Talagang kept the party alive in the district. That man is Hafiz Amar Yasir, a close friend of Moonis Ilahi and a business partner of the Chaudhrys. Due to his strong relation with the Chaudhrys, he managed to get funds for uplift schemes in the constituency.

This was thanks to the PPP which took the PML-Q as its ally and created a seat of deputy prime minister for Pervez Ilahi.

A couple of years ago, there was no gas facility in Talagang city and its villages. Now the facility has been provided in the city while work on the provision of gas to 28 villages falling in NA-61 is underway. Chaudhry Pervez Ilahi would contest election from this constituency.

“We are highly optimistic about holding a large public gathering as we have fulfilled the basic need of the people,” PML-Q leader Hafiz Amar Yasir told Dawn.

He claimed that more than 30,000 people would attend the meeting.—Nabeel Anwar Dhakku