TOBA TEK SINGH: PML-N won all three seats of Gojra tehsil, including a National Assembly (NA) and two provincial assembly (PA) seats, however the party lost a provincial seat and won one national and provincial assembly seat each in Toba tehsil.

PTI swept the election in Kamalia and Pirmahal tehsils, winning all three, one NA and both PA seats.

PML-N’s Khalid Javed Warraich created a record in the district by simultaneously winning from NA-111 Gojra and PP-118. He told reporters that he will retain his NA seat only. He added that the decision to field a candidate for by-election on his PA seat would be taken by party Quaid Nawaz Sharif or President Shahbaz Sharif.

Khalid Javed secured 110,555 and defeated PTI’s Osama Hamza (son of PML-N former senator M Hamza), who bagged 85,440 votes. Javed’s elder brother, former MNA Amjad Ali Warraich, polled third in this constituency. In PP-118, he defeated PTI’s Asad Zaman Cheema with a margin of just 448 votes. His younger brother, former MPA Bilal Asghar Warraich, got the third highest votes.

Former PPP Punjab minister Haji Muhammad Ishaq also contested two seats: NA-111 and PP-119, but bagged only 2,402 votes in NA-111 and 4,771 in PP-119. Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan’s (TLP) Safdar Ali Wahla contested NA-111 and PP-118 and emerged as the third biggest party scoring 8,830 votes in the NA constituency and 10,178 in PA.

For PP-119, which fell under NA-111, former MPA Abdul Qadeer Awan defeated PTI’s Khalid Bashir – son of late PPP MNA Bashir Khan -- with a margin of over 16,000 votes. Here, TLP candidate Zulfiqar Ali bagged 7,270 votes.

It is thought that the PTI faced defeat in this constituency, as Ahsan Ihsan Gujjar (son of late MPA Ihsan Gujjar), who had applied for a PTI ticket but was refused, contested on a PML-N ticket and obtained more than 17,000 votes.

In NA-112 Toba, PML-N’s Junaid Anwaar Chaudhry made a hat trick by winning third consecutive election on a PML-N ticket by defeating PTI’s central vice president Chaudhry Muhammad Ashfaq. PPP’s former provincial minister Neelum Jabbar Chaudhry could only get 2,402 votes, while TLP’s Ajmal Siddique secured 3,628 votes.

In PP-120 of NA-112, PML-N’s former Punjab minister retired Col Sardar Ayub Gadhi also achieved a hat trick by winning this seat for the third consecutive time by defeating PTI’s retired Brig Javed Akram with the margin of over 16,000 votes. Here TLP’s Mujahid Ramzan could get only 2,227 votes while PPP’s Zafar Farooq polled only 1,157 votes.

In PP-121, PTI’s Saeed Ahmad Saeedi defeated PML-N’s former MPA Amjad Ali Javed with a margin of more than 5,000 votes. AWP’s Zubair Chaudhry polled third with 4,500 votes, TLP’s Younis Javed could get only 2,539 votes and PPP’s Zulfiqar Ali Zulfi obtained just 1,250 votes.

In NA-113 Kamalia-Pirmahal, PTI’s Riaz Fatyana defeated PML-N’s Chaudhry Asadur Rehman Ramday with a lead of over 22,000 votes. TLP’s Pir Ahmad Shahzad Shah got 8,074 votes, while PPP’s Nasim Iqbal Kodha bagged only 1,655 votes.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2018