Maryam to contest from 'safe' constituency

PML-N will announce final list of candidates today

LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Wednesday decided to shift Maryam Nawaz from an area that till 2013 was considered to be a stronghold of the party to a politically safer constituency of the provincial capital.

Maryam Nawaz had initially applied from both NA-125 (previously known as NA-120) and NA-127 (previously NA-123) to contest the elections.

The initial understanding in the party was that she would contest the elections from NA-125 where she had run successful election campaigns for her father - Nawaz Sharif - in 2013 and mother in 2017.

Given her familiarity with the constituency, the party awarded her the party ticket for NA-125. Surprisingly, a day before the party announced the tickets from Punjab in which she was a candidate from NA-125, her own team announced that she was running elections from NA-127 which after the announcement of tickets created a bit of a confusion.



Four days into the announcement of the tickets, the party allotted her the ticket from NA-127 instead of NA-125, ending the confusion.

The ticket of NA-127 was initially allotted to the party’s Lahore chapter president Malik Pervaiz, who had won twice from the constituency and his latest victory in 2013 was with a sizable margin. Given the huge lead that the party bagged in 2013, the constituency was considered to be a easy win.

Malik, however, has not been given the party ticket for NA-127 as reported in the media. According to sources, Malik has been pushing for either NA-123 (previously NA-118) or NA-133 (previously NA-127).

The sources revealed that Malik has differences with the local leadership of the party in NA-125 so he himself would not prefer the constituency.

It was further disclosed that the party would consider moving either Malik Riaz or Waheed Alam Khan from their constituencies to NA-125. Both the candidates, according to the sources, were aspirant of party ticket from NA-125 as well as other constituencies, initially.



It is pertinent to mention here that Malik Riaz had faced quite a resistance from within party circles against the allotment of ticket from NA-123 from where he twice won.

According to the sources, the decision was taken in view of Maryam’s inability to run an active election campaign due to her mother’s deteriorating health. They revealed that the party had realised that NA-125 was a tough constituency for the PML-N and required active campaigning.

The party feared that Maryam might end up losing the seat which would cause quite an embarrassment for it. He said the PML-N lead from roughly 40,000 votes in 2013 came to merely 14,000 votes which was worrisome.

According to party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb, the decision was taken by the parliamentary board on Wednesday. She said it was the party’s prerogative to make any amendments till June 29 in the list of aspirants, adding the party would announce its final list of candidate on Thursday.

The party has yet to make a decision on 16 National Assembly seats and several dozen provincial assembly seats from Punjab.