RAWALPINDI: Detained PML-N candidate Qamarul Islam’s children on Wednesday submitted their father’s ticket with the concerned returning officers.

Mr Islam’s 12-year-old son Mohammad Salar Islam Raja and 17-year-old daughter Uswa Islam Raja submitted their father’s party ticket with Additional Sessions Judge Shabraiz Akhter for NA-59 and Civil Judge Asim Hafeez for PP-10.

They also announced that Salar will run their father’s election campaign.

The siblings were accompanied by many of the party’s leaders including NA-62 candidate Daniyal Chaudhry, the son of Senator Chaudhry Tanvir Ali Khan, and workers who held party flags and chanted slogans including ‘Go Nisar Go’.

Qamarul Islam Raja is contesting the general elections against former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and has been arrested by the National Accountability Bureau on allegations of embezzling Rs1 billion in the Clean Water Provision Project.

The police had made tight security arrangements inside and outside the district courts.

Salar and Uswa arrived at the district court with a rally from Kallar Syedan, their father’s home constituency. The siblings waved at the workers from the sunroof of their car.

Addressing party workers and leaders, they said they have come to submit their father’s party ticket with the concerned returning officers.

They said PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had told them to run their father’s election campaign without any fear.

They said their father will defeat his opponents in the elections on July 25 and that he had defeated his opponents with a lead of 50,000 votes during the 2013 general elections.

“The independent candidate has no importance in my eyes or that of my father because only PML-N candidates win elections in NA-59 and PP-10,” Uswa Raja said.

She said the competition will be between two parties and not individuals and pledged to go door to door for her father’s campaign.

Salar Raja said his father is being targeted to tarnish the reputation of PML-N. He said his father is innocent and has nothing to do with the corruption allegations.

“I will not leave a message for Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan as he has no worth in my eyes,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2018