TOBA TEK SINGH, Jan 2: Opposition parties had left the field almost open for the ruling party candidates as they avoided fielding candidates in the elections for slots of district and tehsil naib nazims on Wednesday last.

Except for the naib nazim slot of Gojra tehsil where a candidate had contested from opposition parties alliance “Ittehad Group”, the contest on all other seats had been among different groups of the ruling PML.

In the elections of district and tehsil nazims, almost all political parties had either fielded their candidates or supported each other, but in the final phase they took no interest.

However, the district and tehsil naib nazim elections had resulted in aggravating of differences among various groups of the ruling party as regrouping took place in district’s all towns.

District Nazim Chaudhry Abdul Sattar group’s candidate Sultan Ahmad had defeated Chaudhry Ashfaq group’s candidate Saeed Ahmad Saeedi in the district naib nazim election.

MNA from Kamalia Riaz Fatyana and his wife Begum Ashfa Fatyana, also Punjab Women Development Minister, had to face a real setback as their candidate Rao Azhar Iqbal was defeated by Siddiq Piara on Kamalia tehsil naib nazim seat with a margin of only one vote.

In Toba tehsil, former district nazim Chaudhry Muhammad Ashfaq’s candidate Asif Zaheer defeated district nazim Chaudhry Abdul Sattar’s candidate Ijaz Nasir.

The dramatic win was only made possible after joining the Ashfaq group by Chaudhry Sattar group’s leaders MNA Amjad Warraich and Ghiasuddin Janbaz.

In Gojra, elections for the tehsil naib nazim slot will be held after one month as both Ahsan Akbar of the former tehsil nazim Khalid Warraich group, and Islam Abid of the tehsil nazim Asad Zaman Cheema group, shared equal votes in the show of hand procedure.