Welcome win for PTI

Opposition cries foul, leveling customary allegations of rigging on the ruling party

Barely three months after a humiliating defeat in Daska tehsil of Sialkot district, the ruling PTI has turned the tables on its main political rival, the PML-N. PTI candidate Chaudhry Ahsan Saleem Baryar defeated PML-N’s Chaudhry Tariq Akhtar – by a margin of 60,588 votes to 53,571 – to win a Punjab Assembly seat from Sialkot district in a bye-election this past Wednesday. Interestingly, it was only on April 11 that the PTI had been crushed by the PML-N in the Daska bye-election for a National Assembly seat.

The PML-N has been crying foul, leveling customary allegations of rigging on the ruling party. However, close examination of the results suggests that it was the PTI’s intelligent selection of candidate that won it a seat in the same constituency (Sialkot IV) where they had been defeated by the PML-N only three months back. In fact, Ahsan Baryar, the PTI’s candidate, is a son of PML-Q leader Muhammad Saleem Baryar. The PML-Q fully did not field its own candidate and supported Baryar, thus paving the way for his victory.

Another reason behind the PML-N defeat is the confusion that prevails among its voters and supporters due to the presence of two camps within the party – one led by party president Shehbaz Sharif and the other by vice-president Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of self-exiled party chief Nawaz Sharif. Both the camps project opposing political narratives. While Shehbaz is well-known for stubbornly pursuing a policy of reconciliation with the establishment, Maryam holds a rigid stance against the alleged involvement of institutions in political affairs. This opposition within has started affecting the party in the electoral arena.

For the PTI, meanwhile, the victory in Sailkot is a welcome one, having come after nearly a dozen bye-election defeats in Punjab. This is sure going to help the ruling party undo the perception that its performance – specially over its failure to control price hike – has disappointed its voters.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2021.

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