SIALKOT: The district is home to many key constituencies of Punjab but NA-73, Sialkot-II, is poised to have the most significant contest between PML-N’s Khwaja Muhammad Asif and PTI’s Usman Dar.

Eight other candidates including four independent ones are also in the run for this seat that has been considered a PML-N stronghold over the years. Khwaja Asif consecutively won it five times. In the 2013 general election, Khwaja Asif defeated Usman Dar by a margin of 20,000 votes.

There are 488,393 registered voters in the constituency for which electioneering has picked up momentum and the contestants are going from door to door to convince people to vote for them. They are also holding corner meetings and special teams under the supervision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) are monitoring the campaigns.

Besides the PML-N and the PTI candidates, Zarar Mahmood Malik of the PPP, Jehangir Rasheed (Pakistan Sunni Tehreek), Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar (MQM-Pakistan), Rana Naeem Javaid (Tehreek Labaik Pakistan) and independent candidates Imran Ashraf, Arif Mahmood, Muhammad Asif and Imran Dar are in the field.

Castes are expected to play a key role in the city where both Khwaja Asif and Usman Dar belong to the Kashmiri biradari due to which it is divided. Both of them have support of Arain and Gujjar biradaries as well.

Sialkot’s exporter Engineer Imran Ashraf is contesting these polls as an independent candidate in NA-73 as well as PP-36 and he belongs to the Mughal biradari. The former MPA is stated to be a strong independent candidate and considered in a position to affect the votes of the main contenders.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2018