Welcome back: Gohar Ayub and son join Nawaz League

Two former lawmakers and an incumbent MPA of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly also join the party.

LAHORE:

Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) has tightened its grip on the Hazara division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) province as potential candidates joined the party on Thursday.

Former foreign minister Gohar Ayub Khan, his son and ex-finance minister Umer Gohar Ayub, former speaker K-P Assembly Habibullah Tareen, former minister and PPP member Akhtar Shah, and sitting MPA of K-P Assembly from JUI Raja Faisal Zaman met PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and announced joining the party.

“PML-N is so far expected to bag five out of seven National Assembly seats of Hazara division,” Gohar Ayub told The Express Tribune. PML-N will grab significant number of seats to form government in the centre, he said.

Hazara Province

Gohar Ayub said that during his talks with Nawaz Sharif, they discussed the creation of Hazara province and current situation of the country.



He said that Sharif has promised that PML-N government would form the new Hazara province.

Gohar Ayub said that he and Nawaz believe that the assemblies should be dissolved as soon as possible and federal government should announce the date of upcoming general election. He said that general election would be held in April.

Objections

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah brushed aside objections that Gohar Ayub had been an ally of Pervez Musharraf who toppled the democratically elected government of Nawaz Sharif.

He said that if Gohar Ayub was a minister in the cabinet of Pervez Musharraf, he was also speaker of the assembly in the PML-N government.

He said there is room for all to join the party except those who had stabbed the party in the back.

PML-N’s K-P President Pir Sabir Shah, PML-N’s Central General Secretary Zafar Iqbal Jhagra, Amir Muqam and Sardar Mehtab Abbasi were also present on the occasion.

It may be noted that PML-N’s MNA from Haripur Sardar Mushtaq Khan, who recently joined the PPP, will face Gohar Ayub or his son in the upcoming general election as the main contender in that constituency.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2012.