Former foreign minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice President Shah Mahmood Qureshi has turned against his own party, accusing it of hatching a conspiracy to defeat him in the PP-217 Multan election in 2018.
Addressing a public gathering during his son Zain Qureshi’s election campaign for PP-217 by-poll, scheduled to be held on July 17, the former minister said that he had also informed PTI Chairperson Imran Khan about the conspiracy.
The PTI leader added that Punjab would not have been in this poor state, if he was elected as provincial lawmaker in 2018.
20 constituencies of Punjab are on the ballot after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) unseated 25 provincial lawmakers for voting against party lines during the recent election for the province’s chief minister. Of the 25, five lawmakers were on reserved seats and 20 on contestable seats.
A tough contest is expected between Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and PTI in the by-polls as the majority of the 20 defecting PTI MPAs have hitched their wagons to the PML-N.
In the PP-217 by-election, PML-N and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have fielded Muhammad Salman Naeem, who had defeated Shah Mehmood Qureshi and become an MPA for the first time in 2018, while PTI has nominated Zain Qureshi.
