February 22, 2008	Friday	Safar 14, 1429

TAXILA, Feb 21: Senior PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has set a new record by scoring his seventh victory in elections during his over 25 years of political career.

Mr Khan first entered the parliamentary set-up when he won a Punjab Assembly seat in the non-party elections of 1985.

In the 1988 polls, Mr Khan, then an Islami Jamhoori Ittehad candidate, defeated PPP’s Col (retired) Habib Khan by securing 64,186 votes against 57,878 that of his rival.

Two years later, he for the first time faced Ghulam Sarwar Khan of the then People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA). After a one- to-one contest, Chaudhry Nisar won the polls with a margin of over 15,500 votes. Ghulam Sarwar obtained 63,021 votes whereas Chaudhry Nisar 78,530 votes.

The constituency witnessed the highest turnout of 62.6 per cent when 143,213 of the 228,821 registered voters exercised their right.

The PML-N leader repeated the history in 1993 and defeated Ghulam Sarwar Khan with a margin of 11,488 votes. This time, he got 76,288 votes against 64,800 that of his rival.

In the 1997 polls, Chaudhry Nisar emerged victorious by beating PPP candidate Sardar Shoaib Mumtaz. Nisar obtained 79,255 votes whereas the PPP aspirant secured 41,008 votes. Ghulam Sarwar Khan opted out of the National Assembly election and decided to try his luck on the provincial assembly seat.—Correspondent