Daska by-election: A look at the history of the Sialkot constituency

• Daska was initially a PPP bastion, but turned into a PML-N stronghold in the 1990s.
• PML-N’s winning vote percentage remained between 40% to 58% in the last two elections. 
• The ruling PTI had obtained 26% and 24% of the votes in the last two elections.

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Daska is known as an industrial area, but recently it caught the nation’s attention after the PML-N and the PTI got involved in a bitter battle during the February by-elections of the NA-75 Sialkot IV constituency. 

Apart from the duel, the constituency became the centre of national politics after the presiding officers of the February by-polls went missing due to fog.

Following the controversial by-election, the ECP order a re-election in NA-75. The PTI had challenged the ECP order in the Supreme Court, but the petition was dismissed and the poll will be held on April 10 as per schedule.

Read more: Who are Ali Asjad Malhi and Nosheen Iftikhar?

Here’s a look at the results of the constituency since 1970.

In the 1970 and 1977 elections, the PPP, like all other places from Sialkot, won the seat. The party’s candidate, Khurshid Alam, was able to maintain PPP’s winning streak in the 1988 elections as well but the party’s hold on the constituency started to decline after that election.

In 1990, Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) candidate Nazeer Ahmed Khan was successful in ending PPP’s winning streak.

In 1993 and 1997, PML-N’s Syed Iftikhar-ul-Hasan won the seat.

When the elections were again held in 2002, PML-Q candidate, now a member of PTI, Ali Asjad Malhi, won the seat. His win was largely due to the disqualification of Hasan over a fake degree.

In the 2008, 2013 and 2018 elections, PML-N was able to win back the seat from Malhi. In 2008, current PML-N candidate Nausheen Iftikhar’s husband Syed Murtaza Ameen won back the seat for his party. In the last two general elections, Hasan stood on a PML-N ticket and won the seat again.

Read more: Amid rising coronavirus cases, is NA-75 ready for by-polls?

PML-N’s winning vote percentage remained between 40% to 58%, while the ruling PTI had obtained 26% and 24% of the votes in the last two elections.

In the 2018 general elections, the major factor that harmed the PTI and PML-N was TLP, which obtained 14,801 votes.

The NA-75 constituency has more than 823,000 voters and the turnout in the last three elections has remained over 55%.

The upcoming April 10 by-election is expected to be a close competition between the PML-N’s Iftikhar and the ruling PTI's Malhi.