Jaffarabad seat: Jamali’s younger brother wins by-poll

Jaffarabad has seen many a political and electoral battle between Jamali and Khosa candidates.

QUETTA:

Mir Abdul Rehman Jamali, the younger brother of former prime minister Zafarullah Jamali, won the Jaffarabad PB-26 seat, defeating his closest rival Mir Naeem Khan Khosa by a comfortable margin.

He was contesting the seat on a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) ticket.

The seat, considered to be the traditional seat of the Khosa tribe, was previously won by Mir Zahoor Khan Khosa, a former speaker of the Balochistan Assembly. He was unseated by the Supreme Court after his degree was found to be invalid.

According to unofficial results announced late on Saturday night, Mir Abdul Rehman, who is a former provincial minister, bagged 10,400 votes while his rival Naeem Khosa got some 6,000 votes.

It was clear from the start that the nominee, who had the backing of both federal and provincial governments, would win the seat by a comfortable margin.

Sardar Sanaullah Zehri, a provincial minister and also the chief of Jhalawan tribes, campaigned for Naeem Khosa for a day.

Jaffarabad was considered to be a hot seat where political rivals of Jamali and Khosa fought hot political and electoral battles for this constituency.

There were 26 candidates, including those of the PPP, PML-N, JUI-F, Jamaat-e-Islami, National Party and Sunni Tehreek, contesting for the seat.

There are more than 150,000 registered voters in the constituency in which as many as 86 polling stations were set up with 210 polling booths and 43 compound polling booths.

All polling stations had been declared sensitive.

Heavy contingents of police and Frontier Corps were deployed at all polling stations and the area was also heavily patrolled for the rest of the day.





Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2011.