Two PML-N factions reconcile in Pindi

Hanif Abbasi, Tanveer Khan to jointly run electoral campaigns

RAWALPINDI: With the general elections just over a month away, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has managed to reconcile two groups of its supporters, though it has yet to decide who will
it award tickets for NA-60 and NA-62.

Two groups of PML-N supporters had emerged in Rawalpindi in recent weeks. One of them was led by Chaudhry Tanveer Khan and the other by prominent party leader and former lawmaker Hanif Abbasi.

However, in parlays at the house of party stalwart Tahira Aurangzeb (the mother of former federal information minister Maryam Aurangzeb), Tanveer and Abbasi agreed to bury the hatchet.



Moreover, they decided to operate a joint electoral campaign in NA-60 and NA-62.

In the talks, which lasted four days, Shakeel Awan was convinced to contest on the provincial assembly seat PP-18 instead of the national assembly seat.

However, the party leadership has yet to make a decision on where should former Tehsil Nazim and senior PML-N leader Sajjad Khan contest from. Local union council workers, chairmen and vice chairman, though, have already expressed their support for Sajjad for the PP-11 constituency.



The squabble over tickets in Rawalpindi is nothing new. In the 2013 general election,s the gap between the PML-N Rawalpindi leaders and workers over the distribution of tickets, where Abbasi, Awan, and Ziaullah Shah lost their respective seats to Awami Muslim League’s Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed and PTI’s Imran Khan.

That defeat was attributed to intra-party rifts by ideological PML-N workers.

Now, they fear, if the party leaders and workers fail to bridge the gap, history could well repeat itself.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2018.