KARACHI - The Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) has emerged as a new political force in Karachi as the religious party secured almost 380,000 votes across the city on national assembly constituency, as per unofficial results issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

The ECP has issued details of all constituencies according to which, Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi-led TLP could not emerged victorious on even a single national assembly seat of Karachi but the party managed to get its candidates elected on two provincial seats – PS-107 and PS-115.  The ECP’s unofficial results showed that the TLP got a big chunk of votes from most of the constituencies where it finished at second or third place. The most surprising result was witnessed at NA-246, where it finished runners up with 42,345 votes, leaving behind the Pakistan People’s Party chairman who bagged 39,325 votes.

The TLP aspirant Muhammad Younus Soomro won Lyari’s PS-107 by securing 26,248 votes whereas at PS-115 Mufti Muhammad Qasim Fakhri after getting 21,596 votes defeated the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Abdur Rehman. Besides NA-246, it finished second of three other national assembly seats as well. As per the ECP results, the TLP Muhammad Asif got second place in NA-240 by getting 30,535 votes against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Iqbal Muhammad Ali who bagged over 61,000 votes. Similarly, the TLP’s Mohammad Mumtaz Hussain Ansari bagged 30,524 votes in NA-251 from where the MQM-P’s Syed Ameenul Huq won after securing 56,888 votes.

In NA-247, the constituency which is a mixture of Karachi’s posh and undeveloped areas, the TLP candidate Syed Zaman Ali Jafri bagged more 534 votes than the MQM-P senior leader Dr Farooq Sattar to finish runners up. Jafri got 24,680 votes while Sattar bagged 24,146 votes in the constituency which was won by the PTI’s Dr Arif Alvi.

Likewise, the TLP’s aspirants from PS-94, PS-95, PS-96, PS-109, PS-117, PS-124 and PS-127 finished second and from PS-88, PS-92, PS-93, PS-105, PS-106, PS-113, PS-118 and PS-119 the candidates who were contesting on a symbol of crane got third place.

According to the ECP’s result, the TLP nominees got 4,516 votes from NA-236; 11,665 from NA-237; 30,109 from NA-239; 30,535 from NA-240; 19,184 from NA-241; 3167 from NA-242; 6489 from NA-243; 9273 from NA-244; 20580 from NA-245; 42345 from NA-246; 24,680 from NA-247; 13,797 from NA-248; 23,981 from NA-249; 13,496 from NA 250; 30524 from NA 251; 10107 from NA 252; 24794 from NA 253; 28,546 from NA-254; 21,289 from NA-255; and 9,144 NA-256.

The party’s Sindh chief Ghulam Ghaus Baghdadi claimed that they had won eight national and 16 provincial seats from Karachi but their mandate was stolen. He maintained that the majority of the people had voted for them, saying that the TLP had bagged around 730,000 votes from the city. A political analyst said that it has happened after three decades that a religious party got a big chunk of votes from Karachi. In the late 70s and 80s, Shah Ahmed Noorani’s party, that represented Barelvis too, enjoyed most of the mandate of the city but it was replaced ever since the emergence of the MQM.

After that another party Sunni Tehreek was founded in 1990 by Muhammad Saleem Qadri to claim the representations of Barelvis but it never got that sort of result which the TLP managed to achieve in its very first elections.