ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) member Shumaila Rana rejoined the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday exactly 33 months after she was forced to quit the provincial legislature.
Rana gave up her seat in July 2009 after a female MPA accused her of stealing and using her credit card. At the time, Rana alleged that she was forced to quit the Punjab Assembly by the provincial government, but the PML-N leadership denied pressurising her.
Shumaila’s counsel Malik Tahir Pervez claims that a local magistrate at Model Town Courts acquitted his client two years earlier.
The Election Commission on Tuesday informed that Rana had been named as a PML-N candidate for the reserved seat for women in the provincial assembly. The commission also declared two others as ‘returned’ candidates for reserved seats for women in the National Assembly, according to a notification issued by the ECP on Tuesday.
Officials told The Express Tribune that poll commission declared “two PML-N candidates, Shaheen Shafiq w/o Shafiq Ahmed Khan and Seema Mohiuddin Jameeli w/o Mohiuddin Jameeli as returned candidates on the seats reserved for women in the National Assembly, whereas Shumaila Rana d/o Rana Hidayat Ali has been declared a returned candidate on the seat reserved for women in the provincial assembly of Punjab.”
Earlier, the ECP had issued notices to political parties to submit their list of candidates for the reserved seats for women.
The 20th Amendment allows political parties to forward the names of women and minorities candidates to fill vacant seats in the provincial as well as the National Assembly.
According to a provision in Article 224 (6), “If at any time the party list is exhausted, the concerned political party may submit a name for any vacancy which may occur thereafter.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 25th, 2012.
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PMLN is not a party but a group of people with identical vested interests. A party can not have a name after a person. There are many negative connotations associated with the word N; it gives the impression that party is somehow owned and ruled by a single person–Nawaz Sharif.A serious Democratic Party can’t have a name like Nawaz League. The second problem is somewhat similar to the first one, but it has the potential to become a big hurdle for PML-N when it comes to its unity; it has to do with the party revolving around a single family. In 1990s, the main problem that developed between Nawaz Sharif family and the Chaudris, had to do with the kind of absolute control Nawaz Sharif family had in PML-N. The prime example of it was when after 1997 elections, Nawaz Sharif became Prime Minister of Pakistan and his brother Shahbaz Sharif became the Chief Minister of Punjab. It gave the impression that no one in party was worthy enough to have a higher level position, other than someone belonging to Nawaz Sharif family. Nawaz Sharif family will have to accept that if it wants PML-N to be successful party, the family has to gradually limit its role in the party. People like Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, Ishaq Dar, Captain Safdar and Hamza Shehbaz need to take a backseat and people mentioned above and others need to come forward. Also despite having a large vote-bank in urban areas, the party has very few urban non-bradri people in the party. PML-N despite its claims can not be Democratic Party as it is strongly occupied by Sharif family. Its manifesto is just to bestow upon family members. One still wonders what the worthy politicians like Javed Hashmi and others doing in PML-N. Why they are failing to understand to that there is great difference between a party and family group.
Video evidence is no evidence and charges on the stolen card are no crime in PML-N and no judge calls it corruption. This is a classic example of quid pro quo.
Principled politics of PML N