‘Electioneering my style’: Hindu candidate seeks votes on donkey cart

Wealthy landlords and “Pajero groups” have not changed the conditions of the poor, candidate says.

BAHAWALPUR: A candidate for a reserved seat from Rahim Yar Khan has started his election campaign on a donkey cart.

A Hindu resident of Chak 54, Mehra Hunri Bheel’s nomination papers were accepted as independent for PP-294. Since then, he has been electioneering on a decorated donkey cart.

Drummers accompany him every time he leaves his house on the cart, entertaining the people of the village.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Bheel said that wealthy landlords and “Pajero groups” had not changed the conditions for the poor.

He said if elected, he would work on resolving problems of both the minorities and the Muslims.

He said those riding luxury cars could not understand the problems of the poor.

Bheel is not the only Hindu candidate to stand up against landlords in the upcoming elections. Veero Kolhi, — a member of Pakistan’s tiny Hindu minority — plans to contest the elections in Hyderabad.

With no rival party to back her, Kolhi’s independent run may make barely a dent at the ballot box in Sindh, a stronghold of President Asif Ali Zardari’s ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

“The landlords are sucking our blood,” Kolhi told Reuters at her one-room home of mud and bamboo on the outskirts of the southern city of Hyderabad.

“Their managers behave like pimps – they take our daughters and give them to the landlords.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2013.