Taking a lead of more than 14,000 votes over the ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) candidate Naureen Nishat Daha, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Rana Mohammad Saleem won the PP-206 Khanewal by-election on Thursday, according to unofficial results.
The interesting thing about this election is that Rana Muhammad Saleem, who had lost the election on the ticket of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in 2018, defeated his own old party on the ticket of PML-N. The husband of current PTI candidate, Naureen Nishat Daha, was a PML-N candidate in 2018 and won the election. The seat had fallen vacant due to the death of Nishat Daha. After winning the election, the PML-N workers danced in celebration to the beat of drums. The PML-N workers distributed sweets to celebrate the victory.
Polling for the by-election ended at the scheduled time of 5:00 PM and vote count was underway until the filing of this report. However, according to unofficial and unverified initial results, PML-N’s Rana Muhammad Saleem is leading with 47,985 votes while PTI’s Naureen Nishat was at second position with 33,875 votes.
A total of 183 polling stations had been set up in the constituency for by-elections and 230,698 voters exercised their right to vote, with Rangers providing security along with police at each polling station.
Reacting to her party’s victory, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz tweeted, “Nawaz Sharif’s name is enough!” Whereas, Shehbaz Sharif tweeted, “The lion has hunted down inflation, incompetence and loot and plunder!”
The ECP said that Rangers personnel were deployed along with police at all polling stations in view of the law and order situation. At the polling station 45, a scuffle broke out between the PML-N workers and Tehreek-e-Labeek-e-Pakistan (TLP) workers.
Interestingly, in this by-election, the PPP managed to get more votes than it had got in the general election. Meanwhile, TLP also took a significant number of votes, signalling the party may give tough time to the mainstream political parties in the next general election.
Muhammad Akmal was TLP candidate for whose campaign Saad Rizvi had visited Khanewal and addressed a public meeting. The team of PML-N campaigner Hamza Shahbaz and especially the team of Divisional PML-N President Abdul Rehman Khan Kanju worked hard day and night. A PPP team from Sindh was also present in the town along with the Gilani brothers. But PTI campaign was carried out by its local leaders. Political parties also accused each other of buying votes.
The election was mostly peaceful and there were strict security arrangements in place. In addition, section 144 was enforced in the constituency PP-206. A case of an attack on the house of PPP candidate Mir Wasiq in Khanewal was registered against 60 unidentified persons, including PML-N Information Secretary Ata Tarar. An FIR has been lodged with the police regarding the incident.
Adviser to Prime Minister on Political Communication Dr. Shahbaz Gill claimed on Thursday that a dead man’s vote was cast in the election, saying “this is the secret that forced PML-N to oppose the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs)”. He shared a screenshot of a news report from his Twitter handle, revealing how a man named Malik Jamil voted at two polling stations, 63 and 64, despite being dead.
“This is the secret owing to which PML-N hates the use of electronic voting machines,” he said, accusing the party of winning the election through the votes of the deceased at multiple polling stations. “This is their old way of rigging polls and they want to continue it,” Gill said.
