PESHAWAR: Poet and politician Muhammad Hasham Babar has won only one election in his life and it seems this situation isn’t going to change any time soon. He lost another election on Saturday when he was beaten by the elderly Muhammad Zaman Khan Muhammadzai in the contest for the president of the Senior Alumni Association of Islamia College Peshawar. This time though he was unlucky to lose by just one vote. He polled 155 votes while the winner got 156. When he spoke at the association’s annual general meeting at the Roos-Keppell Hall in the historic Islamia College just before the polling on Saturday, Hasham Babar pointed out that the only election that he had won in his life was in 1961 when he was elected president of the Khyber Union, the elected students body of Islamia College. The Khyber Union polls used to be a big event in the past and the contests were always an exciting affair. Hasham Babar didn’t mention which other elections he contested and lost, but his two losses in the 2008 and 2013 general elections are well-documented. Hasham Babar had also lost by a narrow margin of 837 votes the 2008 general election to Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) candidate Noor Alam Khan from the National Assembly constituency, NA-3 Peshawar. As the Awami National Party (ANP) candidate he had polled 26,201 votes while Noor Alam Khan got 27,038. Both of them have now abandoned their original parties, but their constituency is still NA-3 Peshawar. Noor Alam Khan has joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PRI) and Hasham Babar is now with the Aftab Sherpao-led Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) after having quit the ANP and joined the PTI briefly. In the 2013 general election from the NA-3 Peshawar seat, Hasham Babar contested as an independent candidate and polled 6,449 votes only. He lagged behind at the sixth position with PTI’s Sajid Nawaz winning the contest by bagging an impressive 66,528 votes. JUI-F’s Ghulam Ali was placed second, PML-N’s Iqbal Zafar Jhagra was third, PPP’s Noor Alam Khan was in fourth position and Jamaat-i-Islami’s Israrullah was in the fifth spot. Hasham Babar is the brother of the late Lt General Azam Khan, who earned the love and admiration of the Bengali people as the governor of East Pakistan during President Ayub Khan’s rule. It is said Pakistan would not have lost East Pakistan if someone like Azam Khan had been at the helm of affairs in that province. After retiring from civil service, he joined politics and his first choice was the ANP. He espoused nationalist causes as a Pashto poet and ANP looked a natural destination for him. However, he had to quit the party, tried his luck in the PTI and then drifted to the QWP. One thing about Hasham Babar is certain. He knows how to put up a good fight even if he is often on the losing side.
