PTI loses stronghold of Defence, Clifton to PPP

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was hoping that it would clean sweep the Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) polls as the Defence and Clifton areas are considered the party’s stronghold in Karachi. According to unofficial results, the party, however, only managed to win two of the 10 wards of the CBC.

The winner of the CBC polls was the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) that secured four of the 10 wards while the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and independent candidates secured two wards each. In terms of the area and population, the CBC is the biggest cantonment in the city having a population of 305,938 people. There are 10 wards in the cantonment with a total of 190,280 registered voters. A total of 104 candidates were in the fray.

Almost all the wards of the CBC fall under NA-247, a National Assembly constituency that has been won by the PTI since 2013. It was the only National Assembly seat which the party had won in the 2013 general elections.

All major political parties, including the PTI, PPP, JI, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and Pak Sarzameen Party had fielded their candidates in the CBC’s wards.

According to unofficial reports, PTI’s Shagufta Nasreen won the Ward-6, defeating Aziz Suharwardy, the last vice chairman of the CBC. The other PTI winner was Parvez Ghaffar who secured the Ward-4.

PPP’s Abdul Hameed Baloch and Muhammad Najeeb won in the Ward-9 and Ward-10 of the CBC respectively. Its candidates Ameer Shah and Anwar Zeb also son the Ward-1 and Ward-2 respectively.

The JI was also able to clinch the Ward-5 and Ward-7 as its candidates Rehan Iqbal and Zakir Mehanti won from there respectively. Independent candidate Muhammad Jamil emerged victorious in the Ward-3 of the CBC.

The Ward-8 was won by another independent candidate Babar Jamal. Political parties set camps next to each other in major areas of the CBC but no untoward incident was reported despite casual sloganeering when convoys of voters passed by camps of opposing parties. The traditional election fever was lacking in the election and the voter turnout was quite low.