Pakistan
Punjab by-polls: Imran, Maryam hold brainstorming sessions with activists on last day of canvassing
Both leaders have been claiming that their victory is assured
Lahore: PTI Chairman Imran Khan and PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz made a last-ditch effort to charge voters in Punjab on the last day of campaigining on Friday.
Both leaders addressed gathertings in different cities of the province ahead of Sunday's by-elections on 20 seats of the Punjab Assembly.
The seats fell vacant after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) unseated PTI 25 MPAs (including five reserved) after the dissident lawmakers voted for Hamza Shehbaz in the Punjab chief minister's election, which amounted to defection.
Addressing party activists in Faisalabad, Imran Khan alleged that the PML-N was preparing to rig the elections because the party knows that PTI will clean sweep all the constituencies.
"They will break all the records of rigging the elections," he said while urging his supporters to guard the polling stations on the day of the elections.
Khan said that his party would win against Hamza despite his party's efforts to rig the elections. "We will celebrate Hamza Shahbaz's loss," he added.
At a workers’ convention in Lahore, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz said the by-elections were not a war between PML-N and PTI, but they were a “battle for the development of Lahore”.
She said that in the last four years, the PTI had turned the city into a "dungeon". “Lahore had been left to fend for itself," she added.