THIS is apropos of Rafia Zakaria’s article ‘The virtual vote’ (May 15). The writer has pointed out that the ‘virtual world’ was mostly with the PTI, but did not ultimately prevail because the votes were largely confined to the virtual world.

This may be true for the rural areas where the PTI could not have hoped to penetrate so easily, but the situation was different in urban areas.

I have not tired of telling my friends that my own tailor, mechanic and barber voted for the PTI in places considered to be strongholds of the MQM. One of my friends told me that his driver and the maidservant that works at his house voted for the PTI.

Propaganda has been launched by other parties and their sympathisers that it is only the elite or the upper middle class youth and people on Twitter and Facebook who support the PTI.

Some people have bought this idea readily, but the truth is not so simple.

During my eight-hour-long ordeal at the Greenwich University polling station, I came across people in their 30s and 40s who were voting for the first time in their lives. And not all of them had Facebook and Twitter accounts.

OSAMA AFTAB Karachi