LAHORE: The News said on Thursday that three lawmakers in Lahore are believed to have broken a record by winning general elections without even conducting a poll campaign. This is because they were detained during the election.
In the elections held in 1985 and 2002, seasoned politicians like Makhdoom Javaid Hashmi, Sheikh Rohail Asghar, and his brother Sheikh Shakeel were among the contenders who ran and even won while incarcerated.
With the exception of Hashmi, who subsequently joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), every politician was a member of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) at the time of their victories.
After they received their manufacturing orders, the politicians took an oath.
The first instance of this was in 1985, when PML-N leader Asghar was elected to the National Assembly while his brother Sheikh Shakeel was elected to the provincial legislature. At the time, both brothers were being held under arrest, and their supporters were in charge of their campaign.
Asghar defeated Mian Abdul Kabir, who could only muster 19,056 votes, to win the seat from the then NA-83, Lahore. Asghar received 46,646 votes. The veteran PML-N member won the election by the widest margin of anyone who did not run for office.
With 27,831 votes, his brother Shakeel emerged victorious from the then-PP-98, while Mian Imtiaz Khaliq secured the second position with 6,064 votes.
Furthermore, 17 years later, in 2002, Hashmi, the PML-N’s acting president at the time, won a seat from NA-123 in Lahore while incarcerated during the regime of former military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
He received about 29,000 votes, with Tariq Waheed Butt of the PPP coming in second with about 18,000 votes.
