The President of Pakistan Muslim League (N) and former chief minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif was in Karachi from where he embarked on his party's election campaign. The question is why the head of a seemingly beleaguered PML-N chose this city of teeming millions outside their central Punjab stronghold for this highly important purpose. One of the most plausible answers is that Karachi, which has been witnessing unprecedented intra-MQM bickering in the absence of its founder provides hope or confidence to every mainstream political party to cash in on this "historic" opportunity. While both Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, a party that successfully set a cat among the MQM pigeons through its massive showing in Karachi in the 2013 general elections, and country's one of the largest parties, Pakistan People's Party, nurse some legitimate ambitions to increase their share in urban Sindh, the PML-N too is highly optimistic about its electoral prospects in Karachi. That is why perhaps Shahbaz is contesting from a National Assembly seat in this metropolis. The constituency represents a demographic landscape that apparently favours him more than any other candidate. PTI and PPP have already fielded their top leadership, Imran Khan and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, respectively, for some other National Assembly constituencies in Karachi. Although it is not possible to be absolutely certain of anything and everything insofar as election results are concerned, Bilawal's victory on Karachi's Lyari seat looks a certainty.
During his two-day trip, Shahbaz interacted with all those who matter in Karachi with a view to reaching out to traditional PML supporters in a city that is widely known as 'mini Pakistan'. Shahbaz perhaps believes that he is in a position to showcase his performance as a chief minister to woo voters in other parts of the country that are less developed in terms of civic infrastructure and facilities. His solemn pledge to Karachiites that he would turn Karachi, which has an unfortunate history of woeful decline of economic activity, ethnic/sectarian killings and terrorism, into the most developed city of Asia clearly emanates from his optimism about his party's electoral prospects in the country's economic hub where MQM seems to have conceded a lot of its traditional space to other parties much before the July 25 elections. He is also aware of the fact that he had established as many as three mass transit systems in his province, Karachi, the country's largest city and capital of Sindh, does not even have a single one. Moreover, unlike any other party PML-N is said to have entered into a tacit electoral understanding or alliance with MQM, a party that has been dominating urban Sindh's political landscape since the 1980s, and that cannot be outrightly dismissed despite its growing internal woes even on the eve of general elections. The PML-N seems to have reached the conclusion that Karachi offers it an opportunity to make up, albeit modestly, for the losses that they are likely to encounter in southern Punjab from where a large number of PML-N electables have switched their allegiance to PTI. Last but not least, Shahbaz may be of the view that countrywide election results will not disappoint PML-N, yet circumstances continue to conspire against it.