Islamabad: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan has unveiled his party’s manifesto for the general elections, saying that he would ensure equal opportunities for growth, the media reported on Friday.

Pakistan’s opposition party, led by former cricket hero Khan, swept to a comfortable by-election victory on the edge of the northwestern city of Peshawar, though its majority was trimmed by new hardline religious parties.

Khan said on Thursday that the PTI would prepare prudent policies based on social, legal and educational justice to ensure that talent should be honed in “Naya Pakistan” [new Pakistan], reported Dawn news.

Citing China’s example of bringing a 700 million population out of poverty in three decades, he said: “The PTI (after coming into power) will only focus on bringing people out of poverty, who were being suppressed by a small elite class for the past seven decades.”

The PTI chief regretted that all policies being developed and implemented in Pakistan aimed at making the rich richer and the poor poorer, Dawn news reported.

“It will be PTI’s responsibility to give decent jobs to the unemployed youth or offer them loans so that they could fight poverty,” Khan said, adding that his party would ensure that the rich give taxes to lessen financial burden on poor masses.

PTI candidate Arbab Amir Ayub clinched 45,631 votes, about 34.8 per cent of the total, on Thursday to ensure PTI kept the parliamentary seat in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) that it governs.

The by-election was seen as a litmus test of PTI’s popularity in KP, where it has focused on police, health and education reforms in contrast to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party betting on road and energy infrastructure projects.

Khan, the PTI chairman, touted the victory as a “direct vote of confidence” in his party’s performance governing KP since the 2013 election, when it won the National Assembly seat, known as Peshawar NA-4, with a majority of about 40 per cent.

The next general election is due in mid-2018 but Khan has called for early polls after PML-N leader and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was toppled in July by a Supreme Court disqualification over an undeclared source of income.

Analysts say Khan’s chances of becoming prime minister have been boosted by Sharif’s ouster, and the sportsman has doubled down on his populist message by saying he will pull the country away from infrastructure spending towards improving schools, hospitals and the lives of the poor.

“Most of the youngsters like Imran Khan and believe he can steer the country out of crisis and stop corruption,” said Zahid Hussain, a government contractor.

Awami National Party (ANP) candidate Khushdil Khan secured 24,830 votes, or 18.9 per cent of the total, to pip PML-N’s Nasir Khan Musazai, who won 23,169 votes to finish third.

Khushdil Khan’s showing will hearten the ANP, whose candidates barely campaigned in 2013 as the Pakistani Taliban targeted and killed many of its leaders and activists in KP.

But it was the performance of two new hardline religious parties that caught the eye of political observers.

Mohammad Shafiq Ameeni, a candidate for the Tehreek-i-Labaik party, won 7.6 per cent of the ballot campaigning on a platform of support for Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws that are already some of the world’s harshest.

Labaik supporters have spread their hardline message through mosques and seminaries, including the notion that those who commit blasphemy against Islam should be killed, .

Syed Moharram Shah, a Labaik activist, said the party was surprised it captured 9,060 votes because it wasn’t fully prepared for the election.

“This is our first attempt but look at the people’s response.

It’s very much encouraging,” he said.

Alhaj Liaqat Ali Khan, an independent candidate backed by the Milli Muslim League (MML) party, loyal to Hafiz Saeed, an Islamist under house arrest, obtained 3,557 votes.

Washington accuses Saeed of being the mastermind behind the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people, and has placed a $10 million (Dh36.7 million) bounty on his head. Saeed denies the charge.

Last month, candidates backed by Labaik and MML won about 11 per cent of the ballot for Sharif’s vacated seat in a by-election in the eastern city of Lahore.