KARACHI, Feb 19: Unofficial progressive results gathered through different sources reflect gains for the Pakistan People’s Party in the city whereas one of its major frontline leaders lost in Shikarpur and another in Thatta.

According to PPP sources, the party won three national and seven provincial assembly seats in Karachi.

The PPP now commands NA-239, NA-248, and NA-258 constituencies, which comprise Keamari, Orangi, Lyari, Malir, Bin Qasim, and Gadap areas. The PPP also surprised its opponents by winning PS-80, PS-90, PS-92, PS-108, PS-109, PS-129 and PS-130 in Karachi.

NA-239 (Keamari) has been won by Abdul Qadir Patel of the PPP with around 57,000 votes in a bitter fight despite the anti-PPP election-specific alliance made by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement with the Jamiat Ulema Islam, and vote spoiling efforts by a disgruntled former PPP candidate in the constituency.

In the 2002 general election, this seat was won by MMA’s Qari Gul Rehman who got 22,164 votes against PPP’s Iftikhar Hussain, who secured 21,461 votes, and MQM’s Ashiq Hussain Qureshi, who obtained 11,199 votes.

This time just hours before polling day, the MQM and the JUI entered into a seat adjustment accord against the PPP’s Abdul Qadir Patel. Under the deal, the MQM had announced withdrawal of its candidate Dr K.S. Mujahid Khan Baloch in favour of JUI-led MMA’s candidate Qari Mohammad Usman. However, there were more votes polled for MQM’s contestant instead of the JUI’s candidate, exposing credibility of the commitment. The runner-up obtained over 24,000 votes according to the results collected so far.

Also in the run for the NA-239 seat were Captain Haleem Siddiqui (independent), Amanullah Khan Paracha of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Zar Bali Syed of the Awami National Party and eight other candidates.

NA-248 (Lyari) and NA-258 (Malir, Bin Qasim and Gadap) were retained by PPP’s Nabeel Gabol and Sher Mohammad Baloch, respectively. Mr Gabol obtained 96,000 votes against MQM’s Wasiullah Lakho who could only secure 4,200 with the support of the JUI under the seat adjustment agreement. In the previous election, MMA’s candidate Dr Qari Naseerudin Sawati remained the runner-up with 14,700 votes. Sher Mohammad Baloch obtained over 133,962 votes against independent candidate Abubakar Memon who got 11,505 votes.The PPP also put up a strong show on NA-240 through Abdullah Baloch, who lost the constituency, though he obtained about 60,628 votes against MQM’s Khawaja Sohail Mansoor who secured 67,807.

In the 1993 general election, which was boycotted by the MQM, the PPP had won six national assembly seats in Karachi.

The PPP also won seven provincial assembly seats in Karachi. PPP’s Akhtar Jadoon won the election in PS-80, Nadeem Bhutto in PS-90, Shabbir Qureshi in PS-92, Dr Salim Hingoro in PS-108, Rafiq Engineer in PS-109, Muzaffar Shujra in PS-129 and Sajid Jokhio in PS-130. With the PPP’s support the ANP won two provincial assembly seats for the first time.

But Arbab Wazir Memon, who is also the Thatta district president of the PPP, lost the seat to Shirazi group’s PML-Q candidate in NA-238. Besides, the PPP also lost two provincial assembly seats in Thatta.

Unofficial progressive results of the general election show that the Pakistan People’s Party claimed a comfortable lead in upper and lower Sindh, and southern Punjab knocking out all the bigwigs. But it lost ground in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Faisalabad and Lahore. According to the progressive results provided by the PPP data centre here, the party claimed two national assembly constituencies in the NWFP and results from Balochistan are still in the formative phase.