LAHORE:PMLN stalwart from Lahore and now a very close relative of Sharif family, Sheikh Rohail Asghar is in limelight again these days after the wedding of his granddaughter with chief minister's son Junaid Safdar.
He is amongst the very few political figures related to Lahore who made their parliamentary politics debut in 1985 like his own party leader Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz and Rohail both got elected MNA from Lahore in 1985 but Nawaz retained the Punjab Assembly seat while Sheikh Rohail, who won the election while in prison took oath in National Assembly.
Lahore has elected two MNAs so far who won the elections while remaining in prison and did not participate in the election campaign. One is Sheikh Rohail Asghar who won in 1985 and other is Javaid Hashim who won in 2002. Sheikh Shakeel Asghar, brother of Sheikh Rohail also got elected MPA in 1985 while in prison. However, Sheikh Rohail and Humayun Akhtar Khan, another noted figure of Lahore politics have a unique distinction that they have contested general elections on three symbols allotted to a political party or any electoral alliance.
Besides, Abdul Aleem Khan is also a political figure, but comparatively amongst the junior lot of politicians from Lahore who has contested polls on the symbols of three political parties. He contested on the symbol of Bicycle in 2002, 2003 by poll and 2008, later on the symbols of Bat and Eagle in different years.
Rohail Asghar has contested the elections (held on party basis) on the symbols of bicycle, arrow and tiger. Sheikh Rohail contested the 1988 general election from NA 93, Lahore II in the year 1988 but he lost to Aitzaz Ahsan. Bicycle was the election symbol of IJI. In 1990, he got elected as MPA from PP 118, Lahore, a PA seat as the IJI candidate and got around 42000 votes, largest by any candidate in Lahore on a Provincial Assembly seat. In the year, 1993, Sheikh Rohail Asghar contested as an independent candidate from PP 118 and got more than 9 thousand votes and PMLN suffered defeat on this seat due to this revolt.
Haji Imdad of PMLN lost to PPP's Hanif Ramay who also became Speaker of Punjab Assembly a month later. By 1995, Sheikh Rohail Asghar joined PPP.
He was fielded from PP 118 but lost to PMLN's Haji Imdad and Sheikh Rohail got more than 18000 votes. Sheikh Rohail continued his journey with PPP till 2002 and joined PMLQ. His son Khurram Rohail also contested as PMLQ candidate but after a tough contest against PPP's Aitzaz Ahsan and an MMA candidate, he lost. By 2007, Sheikh Rohail joined PMLN.
He was fielded from NA 124 in 2008 elections and it was third time in his political career, he was contesting on a new symbol allotted to a political party named PMLN, while symbol was Tiger. Including its 2008 win, onwards, Sheikh Rohail won three consecutive polls and got elected as MNA in 2013 and 2018 until he was defeated by PTI backed Wasim Qadir who joined PMLN after winning the seat. Humayun Akhtar is also another figure who has contested elections on the symbols of Bicycle (1990), Tiger (1993 from NA 93 and defeated a heavy weight like Aitzaz Ahsan), bicycle (2002, while this symbol was allotted to PMLQ then) and in 2018 by polls, his symbol was bat.
