TAXILA: Though the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) won both the seats in the Taxila Cantonment and bagged six of the 10 seats in Wah, the margin of votes its winning candidates bagged was very low against the runner-ups of the PML-N.

The cantonment board election results showed that the PML-N candidates did not leave the political battlefield open for the PTI to sweep in the two cantonment areas considered as its (PTI’s) stronghold. In the Taxila Cantonment, the PTI candidate Raza Shah defeated Zarrar Awan with 168 votes while in ward 2 Ashiq Awan of the PTI beat Ghulam Dastigar Butt of the PML-N with 278 votes. In the Wah Cantonment, the trend remained the same.

The constituencies where the PTI won showed that it was not a landslide victory for its candidates as the PML-N candidates were very close runner up.

In ward 4, Imran Khan of the PTI beat Raja Amir Saeed of the PML-N with 160 votes, in ward 5, Azhar Nawaz of PTI won against Raja Saeed with 168 votes, in ward 6 Amjad Kashmiri of the PTI defeated independent candidate Mohammad Nawaz with 850 votes, in ward 8, PTI’s Fahad Masood remained victorious against Raja Sheeraz of the PML-N with 24 votes. In ward 9, PTI’s Malik Ehtesham Iqbal won against independent candidate Farrukh Saleem with 85 votes while in ward 10 PTI’s Mazhar Mehmood beat an independent candidate with 260 votes.

Political observers believed that the PML-N decided to go for a solo flight in Wah but had it entered into an election alliance with the JI, the election results would have been different.

It was also observed that the PTI performed almost similar to the May 11, 2013, elections when it trounced the PML-N in both Taxila and Wah Cantonment. However, this time the PTI failed to drive the voters from home to the polling stations.

Syed Imran Shah, a local PML-N leader, said politics in Wah was different from the rest of the country. He said 97 per cent of the voters in the area were servicemen working in the Pakistan Ordinance Factories and they came from different parts of the country. He said instead of party factor, personality played a decisive role here.

Sadeeq Khan, the PTI MPA from Taxila who remained the tehsil nazim for almost 10 years, said his party had strong roots among the people of the area. He said the PML-N failed to address the civic issues in PP-8, which led to its defeat in its stronghold, he added.

Recounting of votes demanded

The runner-up candidates in ward 8, Raja Sheraz of the PML-N, and independent candidate in ward 9, Farrukh Pervez, approached the returning officer for the recounting of votes. However, after the recounting of the rejected votes, the results remained unchanged.

The applications were, however, referred to the Election Commission. Cantonment executive officer Dr Sajjad Ahmed Khan, who was the returning officer, told journalists that as per rules he was only entitled to recount the rejected votes. After recounting of the rejected votes in front of the candidates, there was no difference on the election results.

However, he said the applications for the recounting of all the votes in these constituencies had been referred to the ECP.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2015

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