PML-N didn’t win in Daska, PTI lost: Fawad

ISLAMABAD: A day after the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lost the high-stakes election in the NA-75 Sialot-IV Daska constituency, Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) did not win, it was the PTI that lost there.

Late Saturday night, Nausheen Iftikhar defeated PTI’s Ali Asjad Malhi by more than 16,000 votes, and the PML-N swiftly characterised it as a victory between narratives. Malhi congratulated Iftikhar for her win, and promised “we will come back with a thumping majority”.

He also reserved “special congratulations” for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for “snatching” his previous victory.

Tweeting in the aftermath on Sunday, Chaudhry said: “The Nawaz League has not won Daska re-election, but the PTI has lost the election for various reasons towards which I have been drawing the attention of the party.”

The federal minister pointed out that PTI will have “to straighten its ranks”as the future of the country depends on the success of PTI and Imran Khan”. “Imran Khan is the hope of democracy in Pakistan and there is no leader of political stature compared to him,” Chaudhry said.

“Recognising Bilawal Bhutto and Maryam Nawaz as the leaders of Pakistan will be a slap in the face of democracy,” he said. “Nawaz Sharif has no ideology nor is the Nawaz League an ideological party. Nawaz League, after being in power for a long time, has become a group which only serves its own interests and its followers cannot be called ideologues.”

The minister was responding to a statement by Maryam Nawaz, who said on Saturday that Nawaz Sharif was the “name of an ideology” as she taunted those “who called time on Nawaz Sharif’s politics”.

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid, however, described the events in Daska as the victory of democracy. The minister said it was a “defeat” for everyone who misjudged Khan’s vote bank in Daska, since the PTI candidate lost by a “thin margin”.

“We won even though we lost in the Daska by-election,” the minister told reporters in Karachi. “We are proud that Imran Khan has a [sizable] vote bank in Daska to this day,” he added. He said the amount of votes polled by Asjad Ali Malhi in the by-election were proof of “Imran Khan’s narrative being alive”.

Summarising the results of the NA-75 by-election, Rasheed said “wrestlers enter the ring [to contest] but only one emerges the winner”.

The PML-N, meanwhile, basked in its victory and attacked the PTI. Party leader Rana Sanaullah said those who “stole votes and abducted election officials” had all of sudden remembered democracy. Party spokeswoman Marriyum Aurangzeb said the victory was a referendum against “wheat and sugar thieves”.