Hafeez Saeed’s son Talha, who contested from NA-91, is trailing. (File) Hafeez Saeed’s son Talha, who contested from NA-91, is trailing. (File)

Despite the hullabaloo surrounding the rise in extremist outfits participating in this year’s Pakistan elections, trends so far show they have miserably failed to woo the voters and not one of them are anywhere close to winning a seat in either the national or provincial assemblies.

The fact that Mumbai attack mastermind Hafeez Saeed’s son Talha, who contested from NA-91, is trailing shows that Pakistani voters have rejected the mainstreaming of militant Islamists in the country’s political landscape. Saeed’s son-in-law Khalid Wahid contested from PP-167 constituency, where counting is currently on.

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After the Election Commission of Pakistan denied registration to the banned Milli Muslim League (MML) — the political face of Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud Dawa — the party fielded its candidates under the banner of Allahu Akbar Tehreek (AAT). The party had put up candidates for 80 National Assembly (NA) seats, and also contested for the provincial assemblies. Saeed himself led the campaign by addressing several rallies, but, as per trends till now, none of them has come close to challenging the candidates of PTI or PML-N.

However, Maulana Muhammad Ahmad Ludhianvi, whose name was removed from the terror watch list ahead of the elections and was allowed to contest, managed to bag 45,000 votes but was nowhere close to victory, Geo TV reported. Ludhianvi heads the Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a radical Sunni group, and fielded dozens of candidates in the elections.

The proliferation of terrorist-affiliated groups in this year’s election has been tied to Pakistan’s military, which is widely believed to have allowed extremists to infiltrate politics in hopes of neutralising the threat they pose. The lack of votes proves that concerns regarding the threat they might pose to mainstream parties in denting their vote banks were totally unfounded.

Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), a Sunni sectarian group, fielded more than 100 candidates but all of them are trailing, according to unofficial results so far. Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the biggest religious alliance of several leading radical parties, was leading on only eight seats of National Assembly despite massive campaigning by its leader, the influential Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

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