- Yasmeen says she’ll take ECP to court on issue of 29000 votes
By NP Newsroom
LAHORE: Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s wife Kulsoom Nawaz won a thumping victory against cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI)’s candidate Doctor Yasmeen Rashid in NA-120 here. Kulsoom Nawaz got 59, 740 votes. Kulsoom was the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate.
Nawaz’s PML-N’s election symbol is a tiger whereas Imran Khan’s PTI’s symbol is a cricket bat. The constituency NA (National Assembly) -120 is the largest in Pakistan’s Punjab province’s capital city and the seat fell vacant when Nawaz Sharif was ousted from power by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, for corruption.
The earliest results had the ‘newbies’ in politics on tenterhooks but those who’ve been in “the game” for some time didn’t take long to take to the streets in preemptive jubilation. They flocked to the shops to buy traditional subcontinental celebratory sweets to distribute and once results began coming in from more and more of the 220 polling stations in the constituency, their ecstasy knew no bounds.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and Nawaz and Kulsoom’s daughter Maryam Nawaz congratulated party activists Sunday night for voting for her mother in Lahore’s NA-120 by-election.
She said NA-120 constituents had proven their faith in Nawaz Sharif and that it was now time for Imran Khan “to cry”. She said their 60,000 votes meant six million to her and she was aware that black hoods were thrown over some activists’ heads and they were kidnapped. Nawaz Sharif too said from England that he had taken note of the kidnappings.
Maryam said the PML-N had taken on all its detractors singlehandedly and she told great swathes of party activists gathered there “You took the brunt of the attack against Nawaz Sharif,” and that the election result had demonstrated that the people had rejected the Supreme Court’s verdict, considering Nawaz Sharif their prime minister regardless of the SC verdict.
Dr. Yasmeen on the other hand said her party wouldn’t give up without a fight and would take up the issue of 29000 votes with the courts against the Election Commission of Pakistan. She said these voters were brought into constituency NA-120 from elsewhere in Lahore, they were not residents there.
