Billboards across Gujrat carried banners on Sunday that placed senior party figures next to Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir and cast them as supporters of emergency and governor's rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The KP emergency news focused on Chaudhry Parvez Elahi and his son Moonis Elahi, both senior leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf. The people who put the banners up have not been identified.
The banners presented the father and son as backing the step so that sit-in politics would end. Moonis Elahi refused that claim for himself and for his father. Other politicians whose pictures appeared on similar banners also said they had not supported emergency rule.
Governor's rule means the governor runs a province in place of the elected provincial government. The banners treated that arrangement, and an emergency, as the position the pictured leaders were supposed to hold.
What the Gujrat banners showed
The boards were spread across the city and included two further National Assembly seats in the district. PTI-backed independent candidates Sajid Yousaf, from NA-63, and Syed Wajahat Shah, from NA-65, appeared on banners of the same kind. Both denied supporting the imposition of emergency in KP.
A separate banner near Jail Chowk carried a different line-up. It showed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz beside PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. It portrayed former federal minister Wajahat Hussain and his sons, MNA Hussain Elahi and MPA Chaudhry Musa Elahi, as supporting the federal government's move to impose emergency in KP.
How the named leaders responded
On X, Moonis Elahi said he and his father had stood with Imran Khan in the past and "are with him now." He said the photographs had been put on the banners by fraud. A close aide said health problems had kept Parvez Elahi away from his hometown, Gujrat, for several months, though he stayed in touch with politics in the district and in the party.
Sources said PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan had approached Parvez Elahi, the party's central president and a former Punjab chief minister, and consulted him about talks with the federal government before the imposition of emergency in KP. Sources also said some senior opposition leaders contacted Elahi to ease tension with the federal government over the protest march. In those phone calls, sources said, he told them to push for better medical care for Imran Khan and for the Supreme Court's decision on Khan's health to be carried out. He also urged them to secure meetings between Khan, his family and senior party leaders.
That account comes from sources, who also said the Parvez Elahi camp in the PTI and the Wajahat Hussain faction of the PML-Q suspected the local administration had put the banners up. The administration has not confirmed that suspicion.
The banners were removed after Moonis Elahi issued his denial and the PML-Q spokesman lodged his objection. A banner showing Shujaat Hussain and Asim Munir later appeared again, without pictures of Shehbaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz.
Celebration, objection and what remains unclear
A spokesman for Musa Elahi warned the local administration against "trying to mix up the PML-N leadership with that of the PML-Q." No similar banners supporting the federal government's action appeared in the city with senior PML-Q leaders and ministers Salik Hussain and Shafay Hussain.
PML-Q MPA Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed Ranian marked the imposition differently. At his political office near Dinga in Gujrat district, he distributed sweets and celebrated the imposition of emergency and governor's rule in KP.
The KP emergency news is a dispute over consent. Several of the people pictured say they never backed the message on the boards. One lawmaker in the district celebrated the imposition, and whoever ordered the banners has not been identified.
Aasan alfaaz mein
Gujrat mein Sunday ko banners lage jin par Parvez Elahi aur Moonis Elahi ko KP mein emergency ke haq mein dikhaya gaya. Moonis Elahi ne kaha ke un ki tasveerein dhoke se istemal ho rahi hain aur woh aur unke walid Imran Khan ke sath hain. Jail Chowk par PML-Q ke spokesman ne bhi aitraz kiya, aur banners hata diye gaye. Aam log ke liye yeh siyasati jhagra hai; is se bill ya bazaar ki qeemat seedha nahi badalti.
