EXCLUSIVE
Tom Gordon
Scottish Political Editor
ANAS Sarwar's own uncle helped fund the SNP campaign which cost the former Scottish Labour deputy his seat at the general election.
Cash and carry millionaire Mohammad Ramzan donated almost £1000 in cash and services to SNP candidate Alison Thewliss, Sarwar's SNP rival in Glasgow Central.
The family power struggle is revealed in official spending returns seen by the Sunday Herald.
They show Ramzan, the brother of Anas Sarwar's father, the former Labour MP Mohammed Sarwar, gave Thewliss's campaign a £500 cheque on 30 March.
Ramzan's United Wholesale Grocer business also gave a banner worth £400 in April.
The help amounted to one pound in every 12 given to the SNP in Glasgow Central.
Thewliss won with a majority of 7,662 on a swing of 22 per cent against Labour.
Anas Sarwar, once tipped as a party leader, has been the seat's MP for a single term.
Ramzan, chair of United Wholesale Grocers, was previously a Labour party donor.
However in the run up to the 2012 council elections, he switched to the SNP, criticising Glasgow Labour for a "lack of ideas and innovation".
Last year he gave £33,000 to the Yes Scotland campaign in the referendum.
Ramzan insisted his donation in Glasgow Central was political, not personal, but added he had not told his nephew about giving money to his rival.
He said he had backed other SNP candidates in Glasgow and it would have been unfair to omit Thewliss, however the election returns show no other donation from him in the city.
He said: "It was supporting the SNP. I was very passionate about Scotland becoming independent. It was not about giving money against anybody. It was to the party."
Anas Sarwar said: "Politics is an interesting business. That's democracy. Each to their own."
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