Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf emerged victorious in the crucial by-elections that took place on Sunday with the party bagging six National Assembly seats out of the contested eight.
Pakistan Peoples Party managed to win in two National Assembly constituencies— NA-157 Multan and NA-237 Karachi — which were previously held by the PTI after their win in the 2018 general elections.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz could only manage to bag on Punjab Assembly seat of Sheikhupura PP-139. PTI candidates won on the other two contested provincial assembly seats.
PTI managed to defeat both JUI-F and ANP in their stronghold of the Kyber-Pakhtunwa province. Imran Khan—who was the candidate for PTI on all the National Assembly seats—defeated ANP provincial chief Aimal Wali Khan and senior leader Ghulam Ahmed Bilour were defeated by the PTI chief by a margin of over 10,000 and over 25,000 votes in Charsadda (NA-24) and Peshawar (NA-31), respectively. Similarly, the JUI-F’s Maulana Qasim also failed to grab the NA-22 seat.
Rigging allegations
PTI leaders accused Election Commission of Pakistan of rigging, a claim rejected by the electoral body.
PTI leader Farrukh Habib levelled allegations of differences in the voters’ list available with the presiding officer in Faisalabad and those provided to the candidates. He said presiding officer’s list did not include the names of their voters and a list with complete names was provided after the party workers protested against the ECP officials.
ECP spokesperson responding to Habib’s accusations, said the election in the respective constituency was delayed due to insufficient security. “Voter lists are compiled under a transparent and error-free process,” the spokesperson said.
The ECP also rejected the remarks made by PTI Chairman Imran Khan, Fawad Chaudhry, Omar Ayub, Farrukh Habib and others as “completely baseless and misleading and have no relation to reality”.
PTI win
The win was celebrated by PTI leaders who called it ‘landslide victory’ against the coalition government.
Asad Umar, taking to Twitter, said “in the last three months there have been elections on 32 seats. PTI has won 24 of these, which is 75%. This is called a landslide!”
Fawad Chaudhry went on to say that the people of Pakistan had given their verdict and had choose dignity and general elections.
He asked the government and state institutions to mull over the possibilities of holding elections at the earliest.
Shireen Mazari said that last night the nation stood with Imran Khan and defeated entire PDM, ECP and state machinery.
“Time to realise the state derives its strength from the people. In strategic terms people are the centre of gravity. The sooner this message is understood the better it will be for Pakistan”.
Faisal Javed said that the PTI chief is all set to announce a long march to the federal capital.
