KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) candidate dramatically quitted from the Karachi by-election race hours before the contest on Thursday, Dawn reported.

The polls were expected to be a contest mainly between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the PTI. In a serious blow to PTI, however, its candidate for NA-245 Amjadullah Khan announced his decision to withdraw in favor of the MQM candidate, citing neglect for his campaign on part of the PTI.

Flanked by MQM leaders Amir Khan and Kanwar Naveed, Amjadullah announced his decision to withdraw in favor of MQM’s Kamal Malick at an early Thursday press conference, held at the Khursheed Memorial Hall at MQM’s Nine Zero headquarters.

Amjadullah accused his party of neglecting him and alleged that PTI chief Imran Khan “did not even make a telephone call to him during his campaign for the constituency.” He added that the PS-115 provincial constituency, where by-polls were taking place as well Thursady, was the sole focus of PTI.

“When Ali Zaidi called a party meeting before the NA-245 by-polls in Karachi, there should have been thousands of workers there but only about 150 people attended.”

He claimed that PTI refused to provide him any funding for his election campaign or other such cooperation.

Amjadullah, who was going to make his electoral debut in NA-245, said he was a total misfit in the PTI and that individuals like him “cannot sustain in the party.” He said there was no such thing as management in PTI.

“Imran Khan is a good person but is unable to run a party,” he went on to say. Khan does not know how to play a politician so he should engage himself in welfare work only, he remarked.

He further said that the MQM already had a soft image among the masses, “which has become clearer in the current scenario.”