In a joint press conference held in Lahore on Friday, both the leading opposition parties announced contesting the by-polls together with the other opposition parties in a bid to give a tough competition to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). He appealed to their workers to support PML-N candidates on all the seats of Lahore as PPP candidates had withdrawn in favour of PML-N leaders. Meanwhile, PPP candidates for NA-124 and NA-131 have also announced their withdrawal from elections in favour of PML-N candidates, conceding to the orders of party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. “We [PPP, PML-N] have both learnt from our mistakes in the past,” he said, adding that it was wrong to assume the Charter of Democracy was not honoured. “The instructions to talk to the PPP for an alliance came directly from Nawaz Sharif,” says a senior party leader.

Source: The Express Tribune October 13, 2018 03:45 UTC