uzaffargarh is a key district in the south of Punjab. By-elections are scheduled in PA-272 and PA-273 for July 17. The two constituencies are situated in tehsils of Jatoi and Alipur.

As Aga Khan said in an interview some years ago, “The best prediction about the future is that it cannot be predicted.” This holds true in the current scenario.

Jatoi was once a part of Alipur, a tehsil since the inception of Pakistan. If writer Muhammad Hanif is right in equating Okara in central Punjab with Kufa, we can also make a similar analogy for Alipur due to the unpredictability of the people’s political attitude.

Sibtain Bukhari, who won the election in 2018 election in Alipur on a PTI ticket, was de-seated for voting against party line in the April election for the Punjab chief minister.

Bukhari has been a part of the Jahangir Tareen group despite having been a minister in Sardar Usman Buzdar’s PTI-led cabinet.

He claims that he parted ways with the PTI because it had made it hard for him to meet then prime minister Imran Khan, who preferred to be surrounded by unelected people like Faisal Javed and Shahbaz Gill.

He tells public gatherings that in such a situation he could not serve the people in his constituency in a satisfactory manner. That was why, he says, he ‘sacrificed’ his perks and privileges and is running as a PML-N candidate.

His family has a history of political participation in the area but none of them had reached the power corridors in Lahore before him.

Amir Talal Gopang, the PTI MNA from the constituency, is publicly backing him. Though he is officially still in the PTI, he is among a group of MNAs who had indicated a willingness during the no-confidence vote against Imran Khan to go against party line. Gopang and Bukhari had formed a joint front in the 2018 elections too.

Facing Bukhari is Yasir Jatoi. Yasir is not a new face by any means. He was raised here. He is a close relative of Qayyum Jatoi, the Pakistan Peoples Party stalwart. He was the only district nazim from the PPP in the southern Punjab during the Musharraf regime and served as a minister in the cabinet of Yousaf Raza Gilani.

After leaving the PPP, the Jatoi family has joined the PTI. As in Alipur, the PTI has given its ticket to Qayyum Jatoi’s family in Jatoi too. In Jatoi, Yasir’s cousin Moazzam Jatoi is the PTI candidate.

“Alipur produces pulses and other food crops but lacks cold storage and a grains market, causing problems for the local population. The PML-N and the PTI appear to be interested only in trading allegations. Social media is playing its part in making people forget about local issues and attend to chants of ‘thief’ and ‘traitor’”

He is facing Zahra Basit Batool, the wife of PML-N MNA Basit Bukhari. Bukhari is running the election campaign for his wife. She does not appear even on election signboards and other publicity material.

Basit Bukhari’s brother Haroon Bukhari is also running from the same constituency. Haroon is a former PML-N stalwart. In the 2018 election, Haroon was among the few politicians in the area willing to run on a PML-N ticket against the PTI. In that election, Haroon had tried to invoke ‘religion’ against Zahra Batool saying that to vote for a woman was haram. Since no tangible action was taken against him by the Election Commission at the time, he continues to use gendered slurs against his rival.

The family infighting can only benefit Moazzam Jatoi. Khurram Sohail Leghari, the PTI MPA in a neighbouring constituency, is also backing Jatoi. Unfortunately, Leghari is known for his unbecoming attitude. A woman in Lahore has lodged a case against him for threatening her with death, and incidents of violent behaviour have been reported in Jatoi and elsewhere.

Yasir and Moazzam Jatoi arranged a public gathering for Imran Khan in Alipur on July 12. DSNG vehicles from TV channels were not allowed to cover this gathering as the PTI feeds their own footage and live coverage. Local reporters liked the gathering and were overwhelmed by Khan’s speech. The gathering was held in a housing society in which the correspondent of a TV channel has stakes. He owns more than one housing projects in the city and reports of irregularities and illegalities in setting up the society where the jalsa was held are rife in the media.

After the gathering, a considerable increase in incidents of violence and instigation of violence against Sibtain Bukhari has been witnessed. As a matter of routine, different groups of PTI supporters gather outside his residence and engage in hooliganism.

Prof Dr Tahir Malik, from National University of Modern Languages (NUML), tells The News on Sunday that neither Imran Khan, nor Maryam Nawaz have said anything solid about solving local problems.

“Muzaffargarh-Alipur Road and Mianwali-Muzaffargarh Road are known as the ‘roads to death’. No leader has talked about upgrading the roads into dual carriageways and improving their situation. Similarly, Alipur-Jatoi Road needs to be a dual-carriage road because of the increase in traffic but it was not on the agenda” he says.

According to Dr Malik, the rising prices of fertilisers and farmers’ problems too were not discussed by any party. “Alipur produces pulses and other food crops but lacks cold storage and a grains market, causing problems for the local population. The PML-N and the PTI appear interested only in trading allegations. Social media is playing its part in making people forget about their local issues and attend to chants of ‘thief’ and ‘traitor’,” he laments.

“Utmost care should be taken to keep this by-election peaceful. A trend for violence has emerged during the campaign,” concludes Dr Malik.

The writer teaches development support communication at International Islamic University Islamabad.   Twitter: @HassanShehzadZ   Email: Hassan.shehzad@iiui.edu.pk