The enraged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers continued their protest for the second day on Sunday over differences in issue of tickets for the upcoming general elections. The party workers from PK-87 Bannu, PP-3 Rawalpindi and PP-100 Jaranwala reached Bani Gala and staged a demonstration. The protest which started on Saturday continued overnight. Dozens of workers gathered in Bani Gala and alleged that the party did not issue tickets on the basis of merit. They rejected the award of ticket to Ghulam Sarwar Khan from NA-59 and demanded that Ajmal Raja be fielded from the constituency instead. PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry has, however, claimed that the party issued tickets to ‘strong’ candidates. Earlier, the PTI had decided to form reconciliation committees to redress the grievances of the workers who were denied party tickets. The decision was made in a meeting chaired by party chief Imran Khan on Saturday. According to a statement issued by the party, the PTI will allot tickets to better and stronger candidates in the next phase. Sharing his grievances, Khan Bahadur Dogar, who belongs to Faisalabad chapter of the PTI, earlier remarked that he paid for the food of sit-in participants in 2014. “I paid for breakfast, lunch and dinner of the protesters from my own pocket for 126 days,” he remarked while addressing a press conference on Saturday. “Besides PTI workers, I also paid for food of workers of Pakistan Awami Tehreek,” he added. “Still, I wasn’t given ticket by the party.” The PTI has announced the names of its candidates for 173 seats of the National Assembly (NA) out of the total 272 seats and a sizeable number of tickets have been awarded to newly acquired electables instead of old party hands. As per the list, PTI Chairman Imran Khan will be contesting for five seats: NA-35 Bannu, NA-53 Islamabad-II, NA-95 Mianwali-I, NA-131 Lahore-IX and NA-243 Karachi. He will not be contesting the election from Rawalpindi this time. Ghulam Sarwar Khan will contest the election from two Rawalpindi constituencies: NA-59 and NA-63. PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi will be contesting from NA-156 Multan. In Karachi, Arif Alvi and Ali Zaidi will be contesting the polls from NA-247 and NA-244 respectively. Saifur Rehman will be the PTI candidate in NA-242 Karachi. PTI leader Asad Umar will contest the polls from NA-54 Islamabad. PTI will field Aleem Khan in NA-129 Lahore and Abrarul Haq in NA-78 Narowal. Dr Yasmin Rashid will be the party candidate from NA-125 Lahore. Published in Daily Times, June 11th 2018.