PML-N has lost popularity

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Federal Minister for Textile Makhdom Shahabddin has said the PML-N has lost its popularity among people in the country. Speaking at a press conference here on Saturday, he said Nawaz Sharif’s demand of snap polls was absolutely a reflection of an undemocratic approach and thinking, adding that general elections would be held at the scheduled time. The minister said democracy was the best for prosperity and progress of the country as well as the people. He said people of south Punjab would get a reward in shape of a new province and the PPP-led would honour its pledge in this regard. He said the demand of the PML-N to divide Punjab into 10 provinces was highly non-serious. He said the situation in Karachi was speedily getting normal. Standing Committee of National Assembly on Food and Agriculture chairman Javed Iqbal Warriach was also present at the press conference. Meanwhile, politically isolated, the PML-N is reaching out to smaller groups and parties that it had once rejected when their popularity was high. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz members had a meeting with a breakaway faction of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), PML-Like Minded, headed by Senator Saleem Saifullah Khan on Thursday. The PML-N is also in touch with some nationalist parties in Sindh and Balochistan for cooperation. “The two parties have decided in principle to form an alliance. We will decide the modalities of this alliance in another meeting after Eid,” former federal minister Hamayun Akhtar, a member of PML-Likeminded, told The Express Tribune. The two sides will give a fresh impetus to an attempt made last year to form an alliance of different Muslim Leagues, a PML-N leader said. The smaller factions of Muslim Leagues in the past had blamed the inflexible attitude of the Sharif brothers as a main hurdle in forming a united Muslim League. Pir Pagara’s PML-F, Ijaz ul Haq’s PML-Z, Sheikh Rashid’s Awami Muslim League and Chaudhry Shujaat’s PML-Q were to be part of the alliance with the PML-N if the effort had succeeded. The PML-N is also trying to put its own house in order and patch up with dissident voices within the party.