Daily Times

The mercurial Chaudhrys of Gujarat have always found themselves blessed with the love from the crown irrespective of who sits upon it. For decades, scions of a reckoning political force–Chaudry Zahoor Elahi–have unitedly held tightly to the baton and used it to swivel through a considerable share in the power equation.

Nevertheless, the new blood has brought forth an unending series of spats over whose ranks to join and whose side to spew venom against. The battle royale has turned the whole broth sour as fingers are being waved in all directions.

While Shujaat and his party were still reeling under the setback of the Pervaiz Elahi’s splatter, another brother has blown the war trumpet. Claiming the elder brother no longer represents the interest of his family, Wajahat has now announced stepping into the ring with a new party. Quite ironically, it was just last month when the entire house had appeared before cameras; setting up a united front and quashing rumours of the split inside. Politics, how fast thou waltz!

But now that the simmering behind closed doors has volcanically erupted everywhere and the younger breed is taking to the social media to dig past statements and paint scandalous pictures, one can’t help but wonder how vile the political discourse has become.

The culture in the pathways to the hot seat was never respectable but it is one thing to tear adversaries apart and entirely different to burn your own house down. By accusing each other of “begging” for ministries, “taking dollars” and passing the parcel of who-is-the-biggest-representative-of-them-all, members of a dynasty once celebrated for its foresightedness are only splashing muddy water with no sight of the stains on their own clothes. Have they forgotten the behind-the-curtain manoeuvering by the younger Hussain that carved the path for one prime ministership, one chief ministership, and now, speakership? All this without enjoying an absolute majority in the house. The sight of family members standing behind different captains is not unusual in Pakistan (the tale of PMLN’s Muhammad Zubair Umar and the PTI’s Asad Umar) but letting such divisions get the best of the decades-old mandate is an ill-advised move.

Political pundits have tilted the hat in favour of the soon-to-be-minted Muslim League Pakistan due to the overwhelming clout of Mr Elahi in the Gujarat belt. Meanwhile, the youngest of the brothers, Shafaat Hussain, has already come to the fore with designs for NA-69 (held by his nephew, Moonis Elahi). The haze surrounding the kingmaker clan is far too dense at the moment for any predictions about the upcoming elections but one thing is certain: one party or two, the Chaudhrys of Gujarat would not let any other cat steal their pie. *