ISLAMABAD: Following the successful show of power by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) over the weekend in Lahore, the ruling PML-N has come under pressure from its own ranks to convene a meeting of its Central Working Committee (CWC) to construct its own response to the opponents.

The CWC last time met well before last year’s general elections to sanction allotment of tickets to the party candidates.

With the PTI’s incisive campaign against the PML-N leadership, a majority in the ruling party believe that it should work out its ‘political strategy’ to deal with the phenomenon, a senior office-bearer of the ruling party told Dawn.

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“It’s encouraging to see that parliamentary parties are standing with us against the protesting leaders of the PTI and PAT, but the time has come to work on party’s own narrative to confront them before it’s too late,” he said.

He, however, said a few leaders in the party had been advising PML-N President Nawaz Sharif against convening the CWC meeting.

Talking to Dawn, Information Minister Pervez Rashid, who is also spokesman for the prime minister, said: “CWC is meant for party politics. After getting people’s mandate and forming the government, we are more focused on resolving issues facing the nation.”

He said “we deliberately avoid convening CWC meeting” so that the party’s influence on government affairs was kept to a minimum.

Mr Rashid said the prime minister had taken a clear stand that parliament was the only forum to resolve the stand-off with the PTI and PAT.

But others in the ruling party don’t buy the information minister’s argument and wanted the PML-N’s own response to the PTI’s increasingly belligerent campaign.

“I am unable to understand why the party leadership is reluctant to hold the CWC meeting and get its input over the political crisis,” a PML-N parliamentarian said, expressing frustration over the PM’s regular meetings with heads of other political parties and ignoring his own people.

The lawmaker, who is also a member of the CWC, said he had more than once urged the prime minister and other senior leaders of the party to call the CWC meeting to take its members on board.

The PML-N parliamentarian, who remained loyal to the Sharif brothers during the General Musharraf regime, agreed that it was because of the same indifferent attitude the party lost its support after the October 1999 martial law.

“They (Sharif brothers) are refusing to learn from their mistakes,” he said.

A political analyst said running the government and party affairs through hand-picked officials and party men had been a trade mark of the PML-N, but it was high time for the Sharifs to get the party united to face their opponents.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2014