GUJRAT: The recent hike in prices of essential food items and petroleum products, power outages in hot and humid weather haunt the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) in it’s hectic efforts to win the PP-38 (Sialkot) by-poll as the rival PML-N highlights these issues in the campaign.

Despite these odds, the PTI has somehow managed to ignite the spark among the local party cadre to pose a threat to the PML-N’s Tariq Subhani, a scion of politically influential Viryo family of Sialkot, as PTI’s all local groups have joined hands to spearhead the campaign of party candidate Ahsan Saleem Baryar.

Uplift projects in rural parts of the constituency are being used as a tactic to woo voters in favor of ruling party candidate.

On the other hand, the PML-N has planned a major public gathering here on July 24 (Saturday) which will be addressed by Maryam Nawaz in a hope to make a vital impact on party’s bid to win two different elections being contested in the district within a span of three days.

The PP-38 by-poll is due on July 28 whereas polling for AJK Legislative Assembly’s LA-36 comprising Kashmiri emigrants from Jammu settled in Sialkot tehsil is scheduled for July 25, a day after Ms Nawaz’s Sialkot trip.

The PML-N thinks Maryam Nawaz public rally will impact both elections in its favour like the Wazirabad and Daska by-poll in February and April last.

The PML-N’s public rally has been planned in Akbarabad which is a central place in PP-38, says a local party worker. According to him, the party has slightly changed its strategy of campaign in PP-38 as compared to the recent by-poll.

For instance, he said, in earlier elections senior party leaders and lawmakers from across the region would join the campaign but this time the party was relying only on the local cadre.Asked what was the reason of changing the strategy, he said the Viryos believed that presence of senior party officials and lawmakers was not required as such a situation could hamper their efforts to manage things and they had only demanded a public rally of Maryam Nawaz ahead of polling.

A local analyst said that the Baryar family of PTI had created an atmosphere of tough competition against the Viryos by gaining support of all major groups within the PTI. At the same time Tariq Subhani has won the support of some disgruntled groups.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2021