Though the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is leading in ongoing by-polls, its main opponent, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), has come out as the runner-up leaving all other parties far behind.

There are instances where the PTI has lost by a thin margin, and its votebank has risen drastically, compared to the 2013 general election.

In the recent by-polls in NA-162, NA-63, NA-101 and PP-232, there were tough contests between the ‘electables’ of the two rival parties. The elections were held amid allegations of foul play, rigging and manipulation by the opposition against the PML-N which, they claim, has all the resources and also used them.

According to the data provided by the Election Commission of Pakistan, there have been 11 by-polls in the country so far. Though the PTI could not win even a single seat this year, it remains the top runner-up, mainly in Punjab, which holds 147 out of a total of 272 directly elected seats of the National Assembly. This makes 54 per cent of the directly elected seats for the entire country.

Out of these 11 by-polls, the PML-N won three national and four provincial assembly seats, while the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won four seats in Sindh, the province where it is in power.

In 2015, there were 12 by-polls of which the PML-N won eight, including five national seats. The PTI won two, including one national, the PPP and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) retained one seat each. The year before, the PML-N won four provincial and one national seat; the PTI bagged four provincial seats while two seats went to independents.

The PPP has won by-polls mostly in Sindh while the PML-N has won from the Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The PTI has retained its position in KP and has also emerged as the major opponent of the ruling PML-N in Punjab.

Recently, the PML-N candidate Muhammad Tufail Jatt defeated the PTI in its stronghold where the PTI’s Rai family enjoys great influence. Many political pundits were predicting a victory for the PTI because of the personal clout and the clan vote of its candidate. The PML-N candidate Jatt obtained 74,281 votes and his contender Rai Murtaza Iqbal of the PTI bagged 61,836. In the same constituency, in the 2013 general elections, Rai Hasan Nawaz Khan of PTI had won this seat with a margin of 13,000 votes against the PML-N backed independent candidate Haji Muhammad Ayub who got 75,756 votes.

The by-poll’s result shows there is decrease in the PTI vote but there is no significant increase in the PML-N votebank either.

Earlier, in another important by-poll in NA-63 Jhelum, on August 31, where the PTI candidate was said to be quite strong, the PTI lost by around 8,000 votes. Raja Matloob Mahdi of the PML-N, whose father was earlier MNA and died after illness, secured 81,612 votes. His opponent Fawad Chaudhry of the PTI bagged 73,819 votes. While in the 2013 general elections, Malik Iqbal Mehdi Khan of the PML-N obtained 116,013 votes and Mirza Saeed Mehmood Baig of the PTI got 42,805 votes. Fawad Chaudhry, who contested as a PML-Q candidate then, had bagged 34,072 votes. Statistics show a decrease in the PML-N votes and a slight increase in the PTI’s votebank.

In another Punjab Assembly constituency by-poll, PP-232 in Vehari, the same day, Chaudhry Muhammad Yousaf Kasailia of the PML-N won by a small margin. Kasailia got 51,556 votes against the PTI contender Ayesha Nazir Jatt’s 50,381 votes and later accused the PML-N candidate of rigging.

In the 2013 general elections, Kasailia obtained 50,260 as an independent candidate and won. The runner-up was Peer Ghulam Mohyuddin Chishti of the PML-N with 43,665 and Rana Muhammad Muzaffar of the PTI could secure 2,284 votes only. Statistics show a major increase in the PTI’s votebank which also includes the personal votes of the Jatt family of the area.

In another major by-poll in March this year, NA-101 Gujranwala, Justice (r) Iftikhar Ahmed Cheema of the PML-N got re-elected securing 82,887 votes against the PTI contender Muhammad Ahmed Chattha, son of veteran politician Hamid Nasir Chattha. Chattha lost by 1,500 votes only. He got 81,218 votes and he too accused the PML-N of manipulating election.

In the 2013 general elections, Chattha who contested election on the Pakistan Muslim League (Junejo) platform got 60,795 votes, while the PTI candidate Chaudhry Muhammad Shahnawaz Cheema secured only 11,592 votes. The comparison shows a decrease of 13,000 votes in the PML-N votebank as the same candidate of the PML-N obtained 99,924 votes. And there is an increase of more than 10,000 votes in the PTI votebank including the separate votes of the PTI and the PML-J in 2013.

"By-polls trend shows the PTI is gradually eating into other political parties’ vote and becoming a major stakeholder in politics and a main contender against the PML-N," says senior political commentator and analyst Suhail Warraich. "Now the locally powerful political families and electables are becoming the PTI contestants."

In December last year, in the by-election in NA-154 in Lodhran, the party’s secretary general Jahangir Khan Tareen’s seat, the PTI saw a great change of fortunes. Tareen obtained 138,719 votes while his opponent Muhammad Saddique Khan Baloch of the PML-N got 99,933. In the 2013 general election, on the same seat, Baloch won as independent candidate securing 86,177 votes while his opponent Tareen bagged only 75,955 votes and the PML-N candidate Syed Muhammad Rafi Uddin Bukhari 45,634 votes.

In another important by-election in October 2015 in Lahore, on the seat vacated by the PTI chief Imran Khan, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, the current Speaker of National Assembly, of the PML-N, won obtaining 74,525 votes while his opponent Abdul Aleem Khan of the PTI lost by only 2,200 votes. He got 72,082 votes.

In the 2013 general election, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had bagged 93,389 votes while Imran Khan had secured 84,517 votes. Once again, there is a marked increase in the PTI votebank and decline in that of the PML-N. However, the PML-N lost its provincial seat in the same by-election and the PTI candidate won by a sizeable majority.

Imran Khan’s PTI finished third in terms of seats in the 2013 general election after the PML-N and PPP but received the second largest number of votes, according to the ECP data. The PTI polled 7.7 million votes in the general election to win 28 National Assembly seats but the PPP, bagged 32 seats with only 6.9 million votes. The ruling PML-N got 14.9 million votes and 126 seats.

"If there is any political change -- toppling of the government through courts, or early election or unusual political circumstances, this will give a further boost to the PTI. Even if the PML-N government successfully completes its term, the PTI is likely to give a tough time to the PML-N in elections but it will still be hard for them to win," says Warraich. "Also, the focus of both political rivals is the Punjab province with 54 per cent National Assembly seats. That is why both parties are paying attention to Punjab, the main political battlefield."