Sharif had said after his disqualification by the country's supreme court in the Panama Papers case that Shahbaz would be prime minister after an interim arrangement of 45 days.
"Perhaps Shahbaz missed the golden chance of becoming premier... He has either failed to convince his elder brother or the latter played smart politics to keep him in Punjab," a PML-N leader who is close to Shahbaz told Dawn on Friday.
Another PML-N leader said that Sharif played some "excellent family politics" to keep Shahbaz away from the prime minister's post, after he himself was disqualified by the country's supreme court on corruption charges.
"Nawaz played excellent family politics. First he announced Shahbaz his successor. Later a campaign within the PML-N was built that Shahbaz's absence from Punjab would be disastrous for the party.
However, Malik Ahmad Khan, the spokesman of Punjab's PML-N government, denied there were any differences between the Sharif brothers saying the disqualification crisis had united them even more.
He did add though that the parliamentary party headed by the elder Sharif was authorised to announce it had gone back on its earlier decision to nominate Shahbaz for prime minister.- Times of India
