GUJRAT: After a glaring rift in the PML-Q leadership, the political crisis surrounding the Punjab chief minister election has opened the door for new political alliances in local politics.
None of the local party officials spoke out in support of PML-Q leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain regarding his letter endorsing the candidacy of PML-Hamza N’s Shehbaz over his cousin Parvez Elahi, the party’s Punjab president, as the Parvez Elahi camp has been in control of party affairs in Gujrat for the past ten years.
Although certain PML-N and PPP officials from the Nawabzada, Kaira, and Pagganwala families have praised Shujaat Hussain’s support for Hamza, Chaudhry Shujaat and his scions may find some new allies from the camps of their family’s historical adversaries in Gujrat.Workers from the PTI and PML-Q, on the other hand, organised protests in opposition to the party leader’s choice and the deputy speaker’s decision to void PML-Q ballots. Some Q employees also demonstrated in front of Chaudhrys’ Gujrat home, Zahoor Elahi, and yelled anti-party anthems at his son Salik Hussain, a federal cabinet member.
While Salik Hussain won a by-election from a NA seat of Chakwal after Parvez Elahi vacated both NA seats he had won from Gujrat and Chakwal districts to retain his Punjab Assembly seat from (Kunjah), Shujaat Hussain did not run for office from his native constituency in Gujrat city NA-69 after being defeated by PPP’s Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar (late) in 2008. However, his elder son
In the last two elections, Parvez Elahi ran for the NA-69 seat presently held by his son Moonis Elahi.Since 1970, the late Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi and his son Shujaat Hussain have primarily run for office in NA-69, and now Parvez Elahi and Moonis Elahi have taken over as the family’s political leaders.
It’s interesting to note that, up until 2013, the Chaudhrys’ primary political adversaries in that constituency were the Pagganwalas and Servis group, which included former federal ministers Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar and Chaudhry Ahmed Saeed.
But the passing of Zahoor Elahi’s opponent and former MNA Mian Mushtaq Hussain Pagganwala, followed by the deaths of Ahmed Mukhtar and Ahmed Saeed, had weakened the competing Chaudhry groups.
