Daily Times

NA-123 LAHORE I

Lahore: Despite being elected as Member National Assembly (MNA) from the constituency for two consecutive terms in 2008 and 2013, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Malik Riaz faces a tough competition this time.

A detailed survey of the constituency that has always returned PML-N candidates ever since the party was formed in 1993 suggests that Riaz is facing severe resistance and criticism from voters.

NA-123 has 405,583 registered voters and it consists of the following areas: Shahdara, Begum Kot, Jia Musa, Saggian Bridge, Nain Sukh, Sabzi Mandi, Ravi Road, Saeed Park, Shahdara Town, Lajpat Road, Kot Shahab ud Din, Wandala Road, Imamia Colony, Matches factory, Faisal Park, Shahdara Railway Station, Qila Muhammadi, Yousuf Park and some parts of Badami Bagh.

The constituency is spread alongside the Ravi bridge and the tomb of Mughal emperor Jehangir. It has two complete and a partial seat of the provincial assembly, while there are at least 22 Union Councils in the constituency. The polling scheme issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan shows that 297 polling stations will be established for 230,950 male and 174,633 female voters, respectively. There are 191,536 voters in PP-144, and 191,590 in PP-145, and the number of PP-146 voters in NA-123 is 22,457.

Although there are 13 candidates in the race for the seat but the real contest will be between Malik Riaz of PML-N and Mehar Wajid Azeem of PTI. Lateef Khan Saraa is contesting on the ticket of Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), while Zahid Iqbal Malik, Hafiz Abdul Wadood and Akmal Khan Bari are the candidates of Pakistan People’s Party, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and Milli Muslim League, respectively.

While sitting at party’s central office at Jiya Musa, Mian Waheed, the main organiser for PTI’s campaign, comments, “The candidates of PML-N cannot run their campaign in the daylight. The convoys of Malik Riaz were surrounded by the disgruntled voters in many areas.”

He said Malik Riaz’s motorcade was stopped by voters in Saeed Park, Matches Factory and Nain Sukh areas. “The voters questioned his performance during the last two tenures as MNA. He is avoiding running his campaign in the daylight while preferring to move at night when the crowd numbers are much lower,” he said.

Waheed had submitted his nomination papers for NA-123, but he withdrew it in favour of Mehar Wajid and was made campaign organiser for the constituency.

Saeed Chaudhry, a resident of Nain Sukh area adjacent to the Saggian bridge, corroborated Waheed’s account and said that residents had been agitated because of various instances where young children died after falling into open manholes. “He [Malik Riaz] didn’t bother to visit the area to offer condolences. How can we welcome him now when he comes to solicit votes,” he said, adding, “The people of Nain Sukh have made a consensus that this time they will not vote for PML-N because of the poor performance of its candidate.”

Despite his poor performance, Malik Riaz has an edge over Mehar Wajid since the later is an outsider in the area and is not well aware of dynamics of the constituency that consists of both rural and semi-urban UCs.

Many voters weren’t even aware of the PTI candidate’s name. Abdul Ghafoor, a fruit vendor at Begum Kot chowk, told this scribe that he would vote for PML-N as his whole family has been voting for Nawaz Sharif for decades. Ghafoor was aware of Riaz’s candidacy but he didn’t know who was contesting from the PTI. “Yes, it is right that Mehar Wajid is an outsider but the people of the area are running his door-to-door campaign and the local cadre of PTI is also involved rigorously in Wajid’s campaign, while both the MPA candidates belong to Shahdara,” said Mian Waheed, who has been living in Shahdara for many years.

Hamid Zaman of PTI had lost to Malik Riaz in 2013 with a huge margin of over 60,000 votes as he could manage to grab just 43,570 votes. Zaman was also an outsider.

For the provincial assembly seat of PP-144, a tough contest is expected between Samiullah Khan of PML-N and Khalid Mehmood Gujjar of PTI. PPP has fielded Ziab-un-Nisa while TLP awarded ticket to Umair Jehangir who lives in Begum Kot. In PP-145, the real contest is between Ghazali Saleem Butt of PML-N and Malik Asif Javed of PTI, while Muhammad Ghafoor is the candidate of TLP and Shehbaz Mehmood Bhatti is taking part from PPP.

In PP-146 that partially falls in NA-123, PML-N’s Hamza Shehbaz Sharif and PTI’s Zaman Naseeb will be in contest.

Ghazali Saleem Butt, former MPA from the area, lives in Badami Bagh and enjoys a huge vote bank in the constituency, while Malik Asif Javed of PTI is a lawyer and former DSP (Legal) who lives in Shahdara Town, the hometown of Malik Riaz. Mahad Qaiser, an independent candidate, is also likely to get sizeable number of votes, keeping in view his grandfather Ameen Butt’s stints as the deputy mayor of Lahore.

Samiullah Khan of PML-N became MPA in 2002 from the constituency when he contested on the ticket of PPP and later became the party’s deputy parliamentary leader in the Punjab Assembly. He will face Khalid Gujjar of PTI who got elected as UC Nazim of Begum Kot during the Musharaf regime.

“The arrival of Nawaz Sharif has reinvigorated our election campaign as the disgruntled workers of PML-N have also joined hands with the party once again by ignoring all differences. They will take revenge against the conviction of Nawaz Sharif by casting votes for the PML-N,” Samiullah Khan said.

He admitted that much more could have been done for the people of Shahdara but said that the party had still completed several development projects in the constituency including the reconstruction of Baradari Road, alongside River Ravi, and installation of water filtration plants in the area. “I have a plan to construct a flyover at Shahdara Mor where traffic congestion is a routine matter,” he said, adding that the party’s president Shehbaz Sharif has announced to initiate a flyover at the point.

“Whenever there is electricity breakdown following the failure of power transformers in the area, we immediately approach Malik Riaz who resolves our problems, while listening to our grievances even at midnight,” said Malik Nadeem of Shahdara Town. “Who will go after Mehar Wajid in case of emergency? He is an outsider whereas Riaz lives with us.”

“Ghazali Butt is notorious for patronising land grabbers, while Malik Riaz is known as ‘Mr Contractor’ in the constituency because he takes commission in each and every development project of the area,” said Malik Asif Javaid, a candidate of PTI from PP-145, while sitting in his residence that has been made his election office these days.

Malik Abrar, brother of Malik Riaz who is in charge of his campaign in NA-123, told this scribe that many projects including a 300-bed government hospital and a degree college for Women was established during the last two tenures of his brother as MNA. “We are going to make hatrick of victories in NA-123 as the PML-N got a new lease on life following the arrival of party’s supreme leader. I have never seen such a charged PML-N crowd ever before in my political career,” Malik said.

Among religious parties, the MMA is nowhere to be seen in NA-123, whereas both the TLP and MML are campaigning rigorously. The TLP has awarded its ticket to Lateef Saraa who is the prosecution lawyer in Patras Masih blasphemy case. The blasphemy charge was filed by the local chapter of the TLP.

The MML has fielded Akmal Bari, a real estate agent in the area.

Mian Nawaz Sharif had won the election from Shahdara in 1993 when the area was included in old NA-92, while defeating PPP’s Azizur Rehman Chan. Sharif’s younger brother Abbas Sharif won from here in the by-elections. In 1997, former Punjab governor Mian Azhar became MNA from here while defeating the joint candidate of PPP and PML-J Mian Mehmood Ahmad. The constituency was bifurcated in 2002 and Shahdara became NA-118 and Hafiz Salman Butt backed by both PML-N and MMA clinched the seat while defeating then president of PML-Q Mian Azhar with a margin of some 4,000 votes. PML-N managed to win one provincial assembly seat falling in NA-118 (old) as Dr Asad Ashraf became MPA from PP-145 (old PP-138). The second MPA was Samiullah Khan who was then a candidate of PPP in 2002.

In 2008, Malik Riaz became MNA from NA-118 while defeating PPP’s Asif Hashmi with a margin of over 30,000 votes. Malik grabbed 55900 votes while Hashmi could get only 24712 votes. Malik Riaz also became MPA in 1997 from Shahdara. All the provincial assembly seats were also clinched by PML-N in 2008 as Rana Iqabl became MPA from PP-137 and Dr Asad Ashraf won from PP-138. In 2013, once again Malik Raiz was elected as MNA while both the MPAs were also from PML-N as Ghazali Saleem Butt won from PP-138 while Khawaja Imran Nazir grabbed PP-137 seat.

Published in Daily Times, July 21^st 2018.