The PML-N leadership is learnt to have changed its mind on bifurcation of Punjab as well as selecting office-bearers for its electoral stronghold. — File Photo

LAHORE: The PML-N leadership is learnt to have again changed its mind on bifurcation of Punjab as well as selecting office-bearers for its electoral stronghold.

A senior party official told Dawn on Tuesday that the changing national political scenario in which the call for Seraiki province had been put on the back burner, convinced them to revisit their plan of dividing the Punjab PML-N into two chapters — south and central.

The aim of the division was to offset the pressure being built on its provincial government by the PPP and its allies by raising the issue of Seraiki province as well as to kill grouping within the PML-N in the race for Punjab leadership.

With the elevation of Sardar Zulfikar Khosa, leader of one of the groups, to Senate from the Punjab Assembly and accommodating Khwaja Salman Rafiq, the younger brother of MNA Saad Rafiq who was also seeking a role in the provincial chapter of the party, in the Punjab cabinet, the race came to an end.According to the official, now Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif is most likely to head the ‘united Punjab’ PML-N while Tehmina Daultana and Hissamuddin Khosa are being tipped as secretary-general of the provincial chapter.