LAHORE, Feb 18: The Pakistan Muslim League-N was leading rivals — Pakistan People’s Party and pro-Musharraf PML-Q, on 10 out of 12 contested national assembly and 23 provincial assembly seats till the filing of this report well after mid night.
Unofficial reports said the PML-N’s Bilal Yasin (NA-120), Mian Marghoob Ahmad (NA-121), Ayaz Sadiq (NA-122), Makhdoom Javed Hashmi (NA-123), Rohail Asghar (NA-124), Khwaja Saad Rafiq (NA-125), Omar Sohail Zia Butt (NA-126) and Naseer Ahmed Bhutta (NA-127) were leading their rivals with big margins. Its other candidates - Malik Riaz (NA-118), Malik Afzal Khokhar (NA-128), - were also said to be in comfortable against their rivals. PPP’s Tarqi Bashir and Samina Ghurki were said to be leading from NA-129 and NA-130.
Of the 23 provincial assembly seats, only one seat (PP-152) was lost to Moonis Elahi, son of former provincial chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. The rest are going the PML-N way. Moonis’ rival PML-N’s Saeed Elahi said 1600 bogus votes had been polled at Gopalnagar in favour of PML-Q nominee.
Polling for one national and two provincial seats - out of 13 national and 26 provincial seats from the provincial capital - was postponed due to the death of the PML-Q and PML-N candidates.
In 2002, the PML-N had won four National Assembly seats from the city and helped the Muttahaida Majlis-i-Amal another three. Three national assembly seats were bagged by the PPP and two by the PML-Q each. One was won by the Pakistan Awami Tehrik. One PPP man - Zaheer Abbas Khokhar (NA-128) later defected and joined the PPP-Patriot to become part of the coalition with the PML-Q. PAT’s Dr Tahirul Qadri (NA-128) also resigned, allowing the PML-Q to increase its tally of national seat from the city to four.
According to the results announced by the Returning Officers, in PP-142, PML-N’s Salman Rafique won with 31,390 votes. PPP’s Zameer Ahmad Khokhar remained runner-up with 8,256 votes. PML-Q’s Muhammad Azeem Hanif could get only 3,426 votes.
In PP-149, PML-N’s Rana Mashhood won with 36,223, while PPP’s Nazim Husain Shah remained runner-up with 15,464 votes. PML-Q’s Malik Habibullah Bhatti could bag only 3,354 votes.
In PP-150, PML-N’s Mehr Ishtiaq won with 34,014 votes. PPP’s Asif Nagra bagged 12,686 votes, while PML-Q’s Irshad Dogar got 5,714 votes.
