PTI won by-polls with better margin in urban KP constituency

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf won the by-polls with significant margin in the urban constituency in the provincial capital while the lead decreased in the rural areas of Mardan and Charsadda in the by-polls.

PTI Chairman Imran Khan secured an easy win in Peshawar against Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, who has been contesting polls from the area since 1988. The former PM received 57, 824 votes against 32,253 of senior Bilour. Muhammad Aslam of Jamat-e-Islami got 3,817 votes.

The turn-out remained only 20.28 per cent, showing lack of interest by a huge population of the urban Peshawar. Shaukat Ali of PTI had won the seat in the 2018 general elections against Bilour. Shaukat got 87895 votes while Ghulam Bilour secured 42476 votes in the 2018 general polls. The statistics show a decrease of around 30,000 votes polled for PTI while Bilour’s votes dropped by around 10,000 in the Sunday’s by-elections. The margin of victory also dropped from around 45000 to around 25000.

In 2013, the PTI chief Imran Khan was elected MNA from the constituency, then called NA-1, with 90434 votes against 24449 votes of Ghulam Bilour when PTI swept polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the first time.

Bilour, however, retained the seat in the by-polls when Imran vacated it after keeping another seat in native Mianwali. Bilour got 34386 votes in 2013 by-polls against 28911 votes of Gul Badshah of PTI.

In the Sunday by-election, Imran Khan got 78589 votes against 68356 votes bagged by the Provincial president of the ANP Aimal Wali Khan in NA-24 Charsadda. The turn out remained 29.02 per cent. The margin of the victory was around 10,000. One of the factors could be the support of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Aftab Sherpao to Aimal Wali as they have strong vote bank in Charsadda. The same support was not seen much from the allies in Peshawar though despite the city mayor is from JUIF which also won most of the tehsil council seats in Local Bodies polls last year.

The NA-24 Charsadda was won by PTI candidate Fazal Muhammad Khan in the 2018 polls. He got 83,495 votes while Asfandyar Wali Khan of ANP got 59,483 votes and Maulana Gohar Shah of JUIF had secured 38252 votes.

In 2013, Maulana Gohar Shah was elected MNA from the constituency, then NA 7 with 53,610 bored followed by Fazal Muhammad of PTI with 40,254 votes and Asfandyar Wali with 38,264 votes. In Mardan, Imran Khan got 76,681 votes in NA-22 while Maulana Qasim of JUI got 68,181 votes.