Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan will contest for all 33 seats in the upcoming National Assembly by-elections set to take place on March 16, the party has announced — becoming the first person in the country’s history to run for a sizeable number of seats.
In a press conference after the party’s core committee meeting in Lahore on Sunday, PTI Vice-Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi said: “Imran Khan will be PTI’s candidate for all constituencies that [are up for grabs] and our [ex-]MNAs, who were earlier elected for those seats will be covering candidates.”
The move will likely pile up pressure on the ruling coalition and endorse PTI’s popularity if Khan successfully wins a majority of the seats and it might dent the government’s popularity, which is already down, giving the Khan-led party an edge in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa elections — expected to take place in the next three months.
