GUJRAT: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid may join hands for the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly’s constituency LA-34.

Elections in the valley are due in July.

Sources said Q-backed Afzal Malhi is likely to get PTI ticket.

The constituency is dominated by Kashmiri immigrants settled in the districts of Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin as well as Wazirabad tehsil of Gujranwala district

Sources said Q’s leadership has been in contact with Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry, a former premier of AJK and the senior most leader of PTI, who has a decisive role in awarding the party tickets in Azad Kashmir elections.

Another source said both the parties had initially sought support of each other for the LA-34 but finally reached a conclusion that both should contest jointly on the PTI’s election symbol since the PML-Q had not been a registered party with the AJ&K election commission.

They said the Q leadership also looked forward for such an arrangement with the PTI in the next general elections (in Pakistan) in 2018.

Three other candidates, including a former union council nazim from Gujrat city Raja Sikandar who had joined the PTI after quitting the PML-Q a few months ago, had also applied for the party ticket for LA-34.

PML-Q-backed Chaudhry Akbar Ibrahim had won the seat as an independent candidate twice in 2006 and 2011. He enjoyed ministerial portfolio throughout his previous 10 years tenure as an MLA but was recently dismissed from the cabinet by the PPP’s AJ&K government after he applied for a PML-N ticket for LA-34. Though there are a number of contenders for this seat, the major rivals are expected to be candidates backed either by the Chaudhrys of PML-Q or the Nawabzada family of PML-N.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2016