Scuffle leads to poll cancellation in 7 districts: second phase of PTI's intraparty elections held in Punjab

The second phase of Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI)'s intra-party elections took place in 31 districts of Punjab on Tuesday, amidst scuffle between the contesting groups, which led to cancellation of elections in seven districts. According to a PTI spokesperson, during the intra-party elections in Punjab many groups clashed in different cities, which led to cancellation of polling in seven districts, including Rawalpindi, Multan, Sheikhupura, Sialkot, Rahim Yar Khan, Muzaffargarh and Mandi Bahuddin. He added that repolling in these districts would be held later.
Like other parts of the province, intra-party elections also took place in the provincial capital on Tuesday amidst scuffle between the contesting groups. Three groups, Ideological, Unity and Tsunami Change contested the intra-party polls for electing office-bearers of tehsils, towns and district of Lahore. Two leading groups, Ideological and Unity, clashed at various polling stations during the polling day, which compelled the party's elections commission to temporally stop the polling. Supporters of the groups exchanged heated arguments over voting issues, which turned ugly. The media men were also beaten up by the party workers for covering the scuffle.
The polling began 45 minutes late in the morning and concluded at 7:00 pm, two hours after the schedule time of 5:00pm. The party's election commission permitted polling beyond the scheduled closing time to make up the time lost due to late start and stoppage of polling.
The candidates of the Ideology Group for the slots of president and general secretary, Lahore, are Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed and Hafiz Farhat Abbas. Aleem Khan and Abdul Rasheed Bhatti are running for the slots of president and general secretary, respectively from the Unity Group. Tsunami Change, steered by Saloni Bukhari, Ibrar-ul-Haq and Waleed Iqbal, is backing Farooq Amjad Mir and Yousuf Khan as president and general secretary, respectively.
A tough contest, as expected, was witnessed between the Unity and Ideological groups. Turn-out was very high, as per the initial assessment by the some party members, out of the total 1990 voters (elected from union council level during the first phase of intra-party elections) around 1800 cast their votes. Each voter was provided with two ballot papers to choose 48 leaders, 30 to elect district office-bearers and 18 to elect town office-bearers from 10 towns of Lahore. Till the filing of this report, the vote count began was in progress and the results were expected to be announced late in the night.