LAHORE: The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has asked its voters to abstain from voting on NA-133 by-election polling day as the party candidate committed a blunder of not meeting legal requirements to contest the election thus giving a virtual walkover to the PML-N.

The election is scheduled for Dec 5.

The PTI had selected former adviser to prime minister on food security Jamshed Iqbal Cheema to contest the election and allowed his wife Musarrat Iqbal Cheema to submit her nomination as a covering candidate but party’s every plan collapsed as their candidature was rejected by the returning officer followed by Election Tribunal and finally the Lahore High Court.

Mr Cheema admits that the matter of finalisation of nomination papers was overlooked as he trusted his legal and Chartered Accountants teams. He states that the proposer had duly obtained a voter certificate from the Election Commission of Pakistan before proposing their candidatures.

Since the voter certificate did not show the constituency of a voter, he admitted that his legal team did not go further to ascertain whether the proposer was a voter in the NA-133 constituency or not. He says the proposer’s home address was in the said constituency.

It is learnt that Prime Minister Imran Khan has admonished Mr Cheema but the party is yet to take any action against the candidate for his grave negligence.

The PTI leaders and workers are, however, shocked over this fiasco and they feel left out of the constituency, where they were working for the past six years.

“Mr Cheema did not take even six weeks to destroy our six years efforts and work in the constituency,” a senior party leader told Dawn. When contacted, PTI Central Punjab president Ejaz Chaudhry said, “We are out of the election”. He said the PTI would neither support any candidate nor even go to support any other party in rivalry against the PML-N.

As Mr Cheema’s banners had continued cropping up in the constituency since the case was in the high court to show that he was a serious contender, the rejected candidate says he was still working in the NA-133 constituency.

As the PTI is no longer in the run for NA-133 by-poll, both the PML-N and PPP are holding corner meetings in the constituency to build the campaign.

A couple of PML-N’s MPAs are active in the constituency going door-to-door seeking votes for Shaista Pervaiz Malik. Ms Malik’s son MNA Ali Pervaiz is holding corner meetings.

PPP’s candidate Chaudhry Aslam Gill has been running his campaign vigorously. Along with the local leadership, Mr Gill is holding both the door-to-door campaign and also corner meetings.

On Thursday, Mr Gill claimed that some notables of the NA-133 belonging to the PTI joined the PPP. The PPP is hopeful that it will make a comeback in the city in this election.

The NA-133 seat had fallen vacant after the death of PML-N MNA Parvaiz Malik and the party now nominated his wife Shaista Parvaiz Malik to contest for the seat.

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2021