Three political figures who also head their party will contest the February 8 elections in Lahore.
LAHORE: The people of Lahore have a unique record of electing several politicians, who led their political parties, in the previous general elections, News reported on Tuesday.
In the February 8 elections, three political figures who also head their party will contest from Lahore. The leaders include Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan People's Party (PPP) president Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Istehkam Pakistan Party (IPP) president Abdul Aleem Khan.
Nawaz is contesting from NA-130, Bilawal from NA-127 and Abdul Aleem Khan from NA-117. However, this is not the first time that the party's top leadership has chosen Lahore as its constituency to contest a general election.
A total of seven politicians have contested and emerged victorious from Lahore while holding the party's top post. The first such precedent was seen in the 1970 general elections, when PPP founder and acting president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto contested the elections from Lahore. He contested from National West (NW) 60 and emerged victorious with a significant margin against Javaid Iqbal, son of Allama Iqbal, from this constituency.
In that contest, Bhutto got around 78,000 votes, while Javaid Iqbal, as a candidate of the Muslim League Convention (PML-C), got around 34,000 votes. It is pertinent to mention that both Iqbal and his son-in-law Mian Salah ud Din contested from Lahore for the National Assembly seats in 1970, but lost.
In the year 1988, the then co-chairperson of the PPP, Benazir Bhutto, contested from the same seat where her father did in 1970. She won that seat by a significant margin.
In 1993, Nawaz contested from NA-92 and NA-95 and won both seats with huge margins. In 2002, while the Sharifs were in exile, Makhdoom Javaid Hashmi was the interim president of the PML-N. He contested from NA-123, Lahore venue which he won. Interestingly, he lost his home seat in Multan to Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who opposed the PPP ticket then.
In 2002, in the same general elections, Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) President Dr. Tahir ul Qadri contested as a candidate from the then NA-127 and won. In the 2018 general elections, while Shehbaz Sharif was leading the PML-N and serving as the party's president, he won the National Assembly and a seat in the Lahore provincial assembly.
Similarly, Imran Khan, founder and then president of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), also contested from the then NA-130, a Lahore seat, and won.
Thus, seven political figures won the general elections on Lahore soil while occupying the first position in their respective parties.
Among the cities of Pakistan, Lahore is the only city where the highest number of former national athletes (five) and the highest number of women have been elected through direct contest in general or by-elections.
