Central Punjab too slipping out of PML-N’s hands?

daily times

The recent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) tirade against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan is a renewed attempt to settle the score for damaging the former’s image in its stronghold – the central Punjab. Although, the veracity of allegations levelled by PML-N hawks Khawaja Asif and Nisar Ali Khan is yet to be confirmed, the party has declared the PTI its archrival, at least for the next general elections. In the central Punjab, as many as 100 National Assembly seats (including reserved seats for minorities and women) and over 200 Punjab Assembly seats are at stake. The PML-N which had been accused of playing Punjab card since early 90s in national politics had in fact reduced to the central Punjab. The party bitterly failed in the southern Punjab and managed to hold power riots under the patronage of the Punjab government in Faisalabad, Lahore, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi, the most populous urban centres with millions of people involved in cottage industry and which were the ultimate source of electoral strength for the party since 90s. The worries of the party multiplied when the PTI managed to stage a successful rally in Lahore in October last year while the PML-N could gather only couple of thousand people in its ‘Go Zaradri, Go’ rally in Gowalmandi – the constituency of PML-N President Nawaz Sharif. The Lahore show, which was culmination of PTI mass-contact campaign during those days in districts surrounding provincial metropolis put the last nail in the coffin of PML-N. The Lahore show shook the PML-N badly, particularly after seeing a dull response to its organised rally at Bhaati Gate, yet the hawks in the party appeared to have seen no reasons and instead of addressing skyrocketing prices, black marketing, profiteering and hoarding. Its policy to blame the PPP-led federal government for all ills proved futile. The PTI, on the other hand, kept the PML-N its prime target, seeking appeal for its slogans against the Sharifs and other leaders of the PML-N working in urban centers of the province. A PML-N leadership visibly irked over the PTI’s making it the ultimate choice of political targeting got annoyed with it yet failed to get out of Imran Khan’s target list. The PML-N tried in the recent past to come to terms with the PTI as it contacted the party for consultation over the nomination of the new chief election commissioner and promised to take it on board at the time of the formation of the caretaker government. But the PTI continued chasing the PML-N like a shadow and brought the latter to a point of unprecedented mud slinging which is likely to blacken its face too because it had many skeletons in its cupboard too. On condition of anonymity, a senior PML-N leader from Rawalpindi believed that the party’s politics of using the shoulders of judiciary to further its politics seemed to have lost the steam the day when the Supreme Court on the call of PTI chief decided to hear the Mehran Gate scandal. He said the PML-N had realised that banking heavily on the judiciary had not just weakened the PPP, but also harmed the party’s political interest too. The PML-N leader said the party had almost shun the politics of using the judiciary for political gains against the advice of hawks in the party. According to him, doves in the PML-N argued that sailing with the PPP for democratic transition would be the only choice left since the PTI had gained much political ground against it than any other political party in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Another PML-N leader from Lahore conceded that the power riots in urban centres were based on exploitation of general sentiments of the masses and was not the handiwork of party’s organisations. He said that the hawkish policy of the party had been ruining its hard- earned image of saviour of democratic system in the country. With general elections around the corner, the party needed to address the problems that fall in its domain rather than accusing the PPP of all the evils, he added.