ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and ousted primeminister Nawaz Sharif instantly shot down the recommendation of a partycommittee not to field its candidates in four national and provincialconstituencies of Rawalpindi against the estranged senior leader ChaudhryNisar Ali Khan.link#_>
“The proposal was killed right away by Nawaz Sharif without assigning anyreasons after it was received by him,” a senior PML-N leader, who isconstantly in touch with the party supremo, currently in London to be onthe side of his ailing wife Begum Kulsoom, told The News on condition ofanonymity.
The development, coming a day after a widespread impression of a thaw wascreated, would heighten the confrontation between Nawaz Sharif and ChaudhryNisar, who have had their relations at the lowest ebb for many months now.
The PML-N leader said a party committee had been formed sometime back tolook into certain contentious constituencies, including those that ChaudhryNisar is contesting. It suggested that the PML-N should not sponsor itscandidates in the former interior minister’s four constituencies becausethis would divide the party vote, he said.
He said that Nawaz Sharif asked the formulators of the proposal how thePML-N vote would split if the party would not put any contenders on theseseats. The PML-N supreme leader found no convincing reply.
Nawaz Sharif told them if the PML-N fields its own representatives in thesefour constituencies, its vote would not divide because its nominees wouldget it en masse. The PML-N leader said that Sardar Mumtaz, who will faceChaudhry Nisar in the Taxila constituency of the National Assembly, hasbeen given two candidates of his choice for the Punjab Assembly seatsfalling under him.
In the other National Assembly constituency, the same has been done forRana Qamarul Islam, who is also contesting one of the provincial seatsfalling in his federal seat. Chaudhry Tanvir’s nephew Chaudhry SarfrazAfzal has also been sponsored for one of these provincial seats.
Nawaz Sharif’s decision adopted “no forget, no forgive” policy vis-à-visChaudhry Nisar, who will become more aggressive in the days to come, andwho has repeatedly declared that he needs no ticket because of his ownstanding in the area.