DHOBI Ghaat, Faisalabad, Nov 20 marked a resumption of sorts for the PML-N. The speech at the big rally nicely summed up the foursome task Nawaz Sharif has at hand.

He is fighting a corrupt government and against the corrupting influence of the agencies and is pitted against an emerging clean alternative. Sharif's fourth battle is against himself, his own recent image. He has to re-establish the lost tone for his party and the people at large.

The rally was billed as a show of intent on his part, aimed at convincing the people that he does want to take the Zardari government to the cleaners. There was greater urgency, since, in the traditional pro-Sharif circles, the rise of Imran Khan as a possible alternative is so often explained in the PML-N's own inability to go after Zardari hammer and tongs.

At the meeting Nawaz Sharif reposed his trust in the two courts he is publicly seen to be relying on: one held by the judges in whose restoration he played a huge role, the other that of the people. He asked the Zardari government to order, and allow, an inquiry into 'memogate' within two days and gave it another nine to clear its name.

This nine-plus-two-equals-good-riddance formula fulfilled but a formality. The people hardly need an investigation of a memo to reconfirm their views about a government from which they are seeking urgent relief.

Consequently, a believer in the process of justice and the law as he may be, for the best part of his Sunday address the PML-N leader had to make sure he appeared to be already convinced about the origins of the memo that has landed the Zardari-Gilani set-up in trouble. Sharif could not be expected to not exploit in true spirit a letter that had the potential of setting the security establishment and the elected government apart, besides compromising Pakistan's sovereignty.

The second-most important moment in his address was when he took great pains to explain that he was never in cohorts with this PPP government.

Discarded was the argument where Sharif would proudly boast of his restraint against the government in the name of democracy. Instead, he found it prudent to refresh public memory with a list of occurrences that distinguished him from the government: the long march for justice and the imposition of governor's rule in Punjab.

Certainly now was not the time to claim credit for the reconciliatory exchanges between him and the Zardari camp over the last few years.

Three weeks earlier, the PML-N head was away as Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif fought the stern Imran Khan challenge to the Sharif monopoly over Punjab by himself. Now it was Shahbaz Sharif's turn to be absent from the stage.

It was in the fitness of things that he did not attend the Faisalabad rally: it allowed Nawaz Sharif space to redeem himself in the public eye unhindered by a comparison with his more impatient, tough-talking and — as one view suggests — more farsighted younger brother.

The Punjab chief minister's repeated angry utterances can be used as a guide to Sharif's own defiance of the Shahbaz Sharif school within the PML-N that had been edging for a frontal assault on the Zardari-Gilani set-up.

Whatever the reasons behind the PML-N policies over the last few years, Khan used the breach between the chief minister's express desires and his brother's inaction to woo a large number of potential PML-N supporters in an onslaught on the Zardari camp.

It was only fair that it was Nawaz Sharif who spearheaded his party when new realities born out of his own policies were intermingling with old suppressed needs to make up a formidable challenge that the PML-N must overcome.

Less than a month after Khan was hailed as a coup leader in Lahore the feeling in the city is that the Sharifs still have the time and resources to recapture some lost ground. And surprisingly for the ever-groping progressive democrats who have rediscovered Nawaz Sharif on the basis of his recent pro-peace and anti-agencies remarks, it is the dirty work the politicians are liable to undertake in the realm of practical politics that could help the PML-N regain territory.

The PML-N's current thinking is reflected in how it responds to whom. Khan is right that the PML-N has tried to answer him action for action — just as it has been matching a lost and self-destructively rhetorical PPP word for word. In the latest phase the PML-N leadership has been found wooing back politicians who it had dropped from the list of loyalists after the great betrayal of October 1999.

The scepticism built on the hurt the Sharifs felt after being ditched by their own cadres and the arrogance derived from the estimates of their personal charisma and clout to see non-entities through an election are luxuries they can ill afford right now.

The proverbial khambas (novices) as Sharif's polls candidates might not be sufficient the next time around. The PML-N needs to quickly resort to old tactics. It must build new alliances and repair the old ones to attract solid candidates. It is not that its friendly overtures are going unreciprocated. Some have already joined the party in Punjab, others may be preparing to do so as Khan's principled PTI opens up to its own little compromise over men with the potential to win an electoral contest.

A typically straight-forward Imran pokes gentle fun at the Sharifs when he finds the veterans reacting to him in their equally typical, direct manner.

Khan's problems start when he is found to be copying the Sharifs and the PPP and PML-Q in his inclusion in the PTI of people who may in time emerge as his election candidates. It is here that the fight between the worthless incumbents and their reformist challenger degenerates into a tussle between 'equals'. To the benefit of the still very resourceful Nawaz Sharif and his party.

The writer is Dawn 's resident editor in Lahore.