LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said on Monday it had built momentum in by-election on the seat that fell vacant due to ouster of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, despite finishing second. Nawaz Sharif’s wife Kulsoom Nawaz won the by-election with 49.3 percent of the vote in Lahore’s NA-120 – a handsome margin of victory but down from the 61 percent garnered by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the constituency in 2013 general elections. The vote was seen as a barometer of support for Nawaz in the wake of his disqualification in July, and an indication of whether the corruption allegations levelled at the Sharifs have had an impact in their power base in Punjab province. The election commission’s preliminary results released on Monday showed that the candidate of Imran Khan’s PTI took 37.6 percent of the vote, up from 35 percent in the last poll. PTI leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the PML-N’s shrinking winning margin from 26 points to about 12 in a constituency where it has been so dominant showed its vulnerability in closer-run races in Punjab in 2018. “If this happens in one of the strongest constituencies of PML-N, the prime minister’s constituency which they’ve had since 1985. That means there is a surge for PTI, there is a tilt for PTI,” said Qureshi. PTI candidate Yasmin Rashid on Monday disputed the count and filed a petition with the commission to suspend the results. “We will continue our struggle for verification of the controversial votes which played an important role in the PML-N victory,” she said. Published in Daily Times, September 19th 2017.