Another disgruntled ticket aspirants from NA-127, Atif Chaudhry also reached Zaman Park to protest against the awarding of ticket from the constituency that was given to Jamshed Iqbal Cheema. Meanwhile, PTI chairman had a detailed meeting with party’s former Lahore president Waleed Iqbal in Lahore Thursday and assured him a ticket for the by-election of NA-131 from where Khan himself is contesting. “I have no more reservations with the party as Imran Khan asked me to run his campaign from NA-131 while also ensuring me the ticket and said that I would contest from here in the by-election when Imran Khan would vacate this seat for me,” Waleed Iqbal said after having a meeting with Khan. It is pertinent to mention that Waleed had been raising his reservations for the last some days for not getting the party ticket despite the fact that he had applied for both National and Provincial Assembly seats. Several angry workers of PML-N also staged protest demonstration outside the residence of former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif where the party’s central election cell is established these days. Prominent among them were former MPA from Lahore’s old PP-137 Rana Muhammad Iqbal and Syed Hashmat Shah who were protesting against awarding the ticket to Samiullah Khan who earlier got elected on Pakistan People Party’s ticket. Hashmat Shah resigned from Union Council Chairmanship UC-4 to contest for the MPA seat but the party couldn’t consider him while preferring Samiullah who is an outsider to the party. Meanwhile, a massive protest was recorded against Sheikh Rohale Asghar who was awarded ticket from NA-128 in the constituency as supporters of Sohail Shaukat Butt, a former Member of National Assembly from the area held a protest rally in the whole constituency against Asghar. However, Butt was placated by party’s president Shahbaz Sharif in a meeting on Thursday and now Butt would run the campaign of Sharif from NA-132 Lahore while supporting Asghar in NA-128.
Published in Daily Times, June 29th 2018.