PTI likely to win most seats in Punjab as party chairman is riding wave of unprecedented popularity
On the other side, variety of other factors including loadshedding and inflation have damaged PML-N’s credibility for good governance
LAHORE: Polling will take place for three National Assembly and three provincial assembly seats in Punjab on Sunday, whereas nationwide by-elections will take place for other seven NA seats. The constituencies where polling will take place on October 16 are: NA-22 Mardan, NA-24 Charsadda, NA-31 Peshawar, NA-108 Faisalabad, NA-118 Nankana Sahib, NA-237 Malir, and NA-239 Korangi Karachi. The by-poll on NA-45, a tribal area seat, has been postponed over law and order.
The hallmark of the 2022 by-polls is that former prime minister Imran Khan is contesting all the NA seats except one that is NA-157, where PPP candidate Ali Musa Gilani has been pitched as the PDM candidate against Meher Bano Qureshi, the daughter of party vice-chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
The political observers see a very tough contest in NA-157. Nearly 10 years ago, in early 2012, Ali Musa Gilani, son of former prime minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, won an NA seat from Multan that was vacated by Shah Mehmood, who had joined the PTI by then. Ali Musa in that contest bagged around 90,000 votes. Meher Bano Qureshi Qureshi is running for the seat left vacant by her brother Zain Qureshi, and the PTI will face a litmus test here.
Similarly, in PP 241, Bahawalnagar, the PTI is facing a tough competition from the PML-N where Aman Ullah Bajwa, the brother of sitting PML-N MNA Ahsanul Haq Bajwa, is contesting against Muzaffar Awan of the PTI. The PTI is likely to win most of the seats in Punjab due to a variety of factors, including loadshedding and inflation. Besides, Imran is also contesting from NA-108, the seat from where PMLN’s Abid Sher Ali tasted defeat for the first time in 2018 at the hands of PTI’s former student leader Farrukh Habib.
Farrukh Habib won that seat with a margin of less than 2,000 votes, but under the prevailing circumstances when the PML-N’s central government has been under immense criticism for its inability to deliver, the result on this seat in Pakistan’s top industrial city could go in favour of the PTI.
