Zubair Qureshi
With the general election taking place after two days within this week, candidates for the three National Assembly seats of Islamabad—NA-46, 47 & 48—are making hectic door-to-door and sector-to-sector campaigns by holding rallies, making promises, claims and counterclaims to woo their voters.
According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), about 180 candidates are in the run from the three NA constituencies, including independents and those who are associated with different parties.
The federal capital is considered a stronghold of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) after the 2018 polls because of its clean sweep on all three seats, but interestingly three former Members of National Assembly (MNAs) of PTI who had won 2018 elections from three seats of the capital—Asad Umar (from NA-46), Ali Nawaz Awan (from NA-47 and Raja Khurram Nawaz (from NA-48) are no more in the race.
The main contesting parties namely the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the PTI, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) have accelerated their election campaign. On Sunday, JI workers along with the students of the Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT) held a motorcycle rally in the NA-46 where former MNA and Vice President of the JI, Mian Muhammad Aslam is contesting election on the symbol of ‘Turazoo’ or ‘weighing scale.’ The participants held the motorbike rally from Karachi Company (G-9/4) to Aabpara and played their party anthem promising a ‘prosperous and developed Islamabad.’
