LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid has announced its support for the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in the by-election for NA-120, Lahore-III, to be held on Sept 17.

The announcement was made by PML-Q senior leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi here on Friday. He said his party would not field its candidate and that only joint efforts by the opposition could defeat the ruling PML-N in this constituency.

The PML-N is yet to select its candidate for the constituency which fell vacant after deseating of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on the Supreme Court orders.

The PTI has fielded Dr Yasmin Rashid for the seat. She was runner-up with 52,000 plus vote tally in the 2013 general election while contesting against Mr Sharif, who had bagged over 91,000 ballots. The seat had always been won by the Sharifs or their nominee(s) since 1985.

The Q League had not fielded its candidate from this constituency in the 2013 election. In 2008, when the party was at its peak of popularity, Khwaja Tahir Zia as its nominee could bag only 4,270 votes. However during its infancy in 2002 polls, PML-Q nominee Mian Asharf bagged 15,085 votes to stand third in the contest in the majority voting system.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2017