The result of the hotly contested by-election of NA122 and PP147 has taken an interesting turn where PMLN was able to retain the national assembly seat of NA122 but couldn’t save its provincial seat of PP147 which was won by PTI.

PMLN’s Sardar Ayaz Sadiq won the NA 122 seat by securing 76204 votes while PTI’s Aleem Khan secured 72043 votes and lost by mere 4161 votes. Ayaz Sadiq had won the same seat by a margin of 8945 votes in the 2013 general election.

Interestingly, in the same constituency the provincial assembly seat of PP147 was won by Shoaib Siddiqui of Tehreek-e-Insaf. Shoaib Siddiqui won the seat by securing 31993 votes while PMLN’s Mohsin Latif secured 28641 votes.

Earlier, Mr. Ayaz Sadiq had claimed to win by a big margin of around 50,000, a claim which turned out to be false. In reality, his winning margin has decreased while keeping in view the fact that his party is in power both at Centre and Punjab.

Lahore has been a stronghold of PMLN for over 30 years and still they had to lose one of their seats and narrowly saved the other. His political campaign was run by close to some fifty members of the provincial and federal assemblies which included sitting ministers.

Political analysts call it an achievement for PTI for giving such a tough time to PMLN in their stronghold and for snatching the PP147 seat from them.