LAHORE: Despite being witness to so many tumultuous political happenings since the last time the nation went to polls, a good number of voters in NA-120 still side with the party on the polling day they had voted for in 2013.

Those loyal to the PML-N said the Panama Papers revelations about the ruling Sharifs had not diminished their support for their leader Nawaz Sharif.

“We have been supporting the Sharif family for decades. My family had been voting for the PML-N since 1990s and we will continue doing so,” Mrs Farhat Zahid who along with her two young daughters cast her vote in Mozang told Dawn. To a question about corruption allegations against the Sharifs, she said: “Everyone plunders here, but they (Sharifs) at least spend something on the masses too.”

Basharat Ali, who cast his vote early in the morning near Data Darbar, said the street where he lived in the area was in dilapidated condition and the PML-N councillor had pledged to get it repaired soon. “Our vote is for the PML-N,” he said.

Ali Sufian of Mozang Adda said he voted for the PTI candidate in 2013 and did so again on Sunday. “I argued with my PML-N friends in the locality to change their loyalties after the corruption of the Sharif family was revealed.

I support the PTI for change. The party will be tested once it comes to power in the Centre,” he said.

Khurram Shahzad, a resident of Anarkali, said: “Last time I voted for Nawaz Sharif. But this time I voted for Dr Yasmin Rashid of the PTI. How many times we have to try the PML-N. Let someone else have a chance to rule,” he said.

Meanwhile, unlike the NA-122 by-poll not many complaints about transfer of votes to other constituencies were reported in NA-120.

“I have come to vote (for PTI candidate) but I am told that my vote is not here. How come this happens. In 2013 I voted here,” Saad Ahmed of Mozang said.

Some voters criticised the Election Commission for what they said not making proper arrangements at the women polling station set up in the Central Model School. Women voters were seen queued up along the road outside the school to cast their votes.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2017