Ex-cricketer Khalid Latif contesting for Karachi’s PS-89 on TLP ticket

LAHORE: Former Pakistani cricketer Khalid Latif has been fielded from PS-89, Malir, Karachi, by the Tehreek-e- Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).

Latif remained part of the national cricket team’s ODI squad in and around 2008 and played five ODIs for Pakistan, besides 13 T20 games and 137 first class matches. However, Latif’s statement of putting a head money of Rs3 million on a person who committed blasphemy brought him under a 12-year sentence in absentia by a Dutch court.

Sources said TLP head Saad Rizvi approached him and he was offered to contest from NA-231 against the PPP’s Hakim Baloch. However, he has accepted the PS-89 ticket and is now contesting against the PPP’s Salim Baloch and PTI-backed Ashraf Sammo. The Jamaat-e-Islami has fielded Shoaib Hyder for this seat.

PS-89 falls in NA-231, which was won by the PPP’s Abdul Hakim Baloch, who has emerged victorious three times in his political career. PTI Chairman Imran Khan suffered defeat at the hands of Hakim Baloch in the by-polls. The other provincial assembly seats in NA-231 are PS-84, 87, 88 and 89.

Talking to The News, Khalid Latif said he was busy with his regular door-to-door campaign and expressed the hope he would emerge victorious. The TLP took everyone by surprise while showing a considerable vote bank in Karachi where not only its MPA got elected from Baldia, but on most of the seats, its ticket holders were at number two position while leaving the PPP behind.

So far, five former sportsmen who represented Pakistan at national and international level have got elected as MPA or MNA. The first Pakistani former sportsman who got elected as MPA was Abdul Hafeez Kardar, first captain of the Pakistan cricket team. He got elected on the PPP ticket in the 1970 elections from Lahore.

In the 1985 elections, a former Olympian and hockey player, captain of the World Cup winning side of Pakistan in 1982 WC, Akhtar Rasool, got elected as MPA from Lahore. In the same elections, former cricketer Sarfaraz Nawaz also got elected MPA from Lahore. Akhtar Rasool won in the next four general elections as well.

Former Olympian Qasim Zia also got elected MPA on the PPP ticket in 2002. Imran Khan, the PTI founder, won for the first time from Lahore in 2018.