LAHORE, Jan 1: The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf and the Pakistan Mazdoor Mahaz have announced that they would support Amirul Azeem, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal nominee for PP-147.

Earlier, the PTI had withdrawn its candidate, Haji Imtiaz, from PP-142 in favour of PML-N aspirant Inamullah Niazi.

Byelections for both the seats will be held on Jan 15.

The PML-Q and the PML-N have fielded Abdul Aleem Khan and Zaeem Husain Qadri respectively for the PP-147.

Mr Aleem had earlier contested as PML-Q nominee from NA-127 in the Oct 10 general elections and had lost to Pakistan Awami Tehrik chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri.

PTI’s Punjab president Mian Sajid Pervez along with Mr Azeem held a press conference here on Wednesday to announce the decision that the party was withdrawing its candidate, Amar Saleem, in favour of the MMA nominee.

The PP-147 falls under National Assembly constituency 123 from where PTI chief Imran Khan had bagged over 11,000 votes in the Oct 10 polls to lose the seat to PML-N’s Sardar Ayaz Sadiq. Mr Khan had clinched most of the votes from the PP-147 area that mostly comprises railway colonies and Kutcha Abadis on railway land.

Asked why the PTI had supported two different parties in the byelections for two seats, Mr Pervez said his party had decided to support the strongest possible anti-government candidate in each constituency.

He said that the PTI would support Zaeem Qadri.

“Mr Qadri had himself started to say that the PTI decision to withdraw its candidates in favour of Mr Niazi would also help him. I had immediately made it clear to ARD president Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, who was also present at the press conference, that we had not announced support for Mr Qadri.”

Amirul Azeem claimed that both Imran Khan and PPP’s Punjab president Qasim Zia had insisted upon local PML-N leaders that they should surrender one of the two Punjab Assembly seats in Lahore to the MMA so that joint candidates could be put up against the Q-League nominees.

But they said that the decision would be taken by their exiled leaders in Jeddah.

The MMA candidate alleged that both the provincial and the district governments were interfering in the byelections. He said city government’s vehicles were being used to remove his publicity banners and posters from roads and streets to replace them with that of Q-League nominee’s publicity material.