LAHORE: Shaista Pervaiz Malik, PML-N candidate has won the by-election in NA-133 constituency in Lahore. NA-133 is considered a stronghold of the PML-N and the party retained the seat without facing a tough contest as the ruling party’s candidate technically left the field open for PML-N and PPP.
Interestingly, the voters low turnout has stunned everyone in the city and political observers as well. PML-N’s candidate Shaista Pervaiz Malik got 46,811 votes while her main rival, PPP’s Chaudhry Aslam Gill get 32,313 votes.
The voters’ turnout remained just 18.59% as out of total 440,845 voters, only 80,022 used their voting right.
There were nine other contestants _ independent or those belonging to little known outfits in the competition, while the candidate of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf had already been knocked out of the contest on technical grounds.
Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), which had emerged as the third largest group in the 2018 general elections, preferred to remain out of the arena in the by-polls.
Mr Gill had pooled only 5,500 votes in the 2018 general election for the same seat that fell vacant after the demise of PML-N MNA Pervaiz Malik, who had grabbed over 90,000 votes then. Shaista Malik, the widow of Pervaiz Malik, did not personally take part in her election campaign for being in “Iddat” and her son, Ali Pervaiz Malik, also a PML-N MNA from an adjacent constituency ran the electioneering campaign.
A total of 254 polling stations were established in NA-133 out of which 34 were declared sensitive and 21 most sensitive. About 2,000 police personnel and Punjab Rangers were deployed in NA-133. The polling process continued from 8am till 5pm without any break.
Former President Asif Ali Zardari and Co-Chairman of PPP, despite his health problems, camped in Lahore for many days to boost morale of party activists and support election campaign of Mr Gill, a die-hard jiyala from a lower middle class family.
Keeping in view Aslam Gill’s financial issues, PPP’s affluent leaders as well as from outside Punjab made generous donations to match the PML-N electioneering as a result of which the vote-bank of the party increased in by-election.
