JHANG, June 24: The PPP high command’s decision to nominate Rana Shahbaz to the post of party president of the newly-created Ahmadpur Sial tehsil has been criticized by the old party workers, office-bearers and ticket-holders.

Lashing out at the nomination, Advocate Akhtar Abbas Bhirwana, a former ticket-holder and Shorkot tehsil party president, told Dawn that the decision was an example of nepotism, which would have disastrous impact on the party’s chances of success in the forthcoming local elections.

The Rana’s only merit, he said, was that he was a cousin of PPP Punjab Secretary-General Rana Aftab Ahmad. Otherwise, he was considered an outsider in Ahmadpur Sial for although his family owned some land at Samandwana village in the vicinity of the tehsil, Rana Shahbaz himself lived in Faisalabad and had no standing in the local politics.

A majority of the party workers had heard his name for the first time, said Bhirwana, who added that Rana Aftab and Qasim Zia should have first visited the new tehsil and consulted the party workers as was the practice before finalizing his name.

Saadat Mehdi Sial, another senior party worker, who is a former tehsil Shorkot’s secretary-general and an ex-member of Ahmadpur Sial district council, described the nomination as favouritism by Rana Aftab.

The Rana, he alleged, had annoyed the party well-wishers of two dominant tribes of the area, the Sials and the Balochs, who form 99 per cent of the tehsil population. While the nominee was from the Rajput clan, which had one per cent population.

He said now the party’s chances of emerging successful in the local election have diminished.

Jabir Khan Baloch, a former tehsil Shorkot president and an ex-member of the Jhang district council who represents the Baloch tribe, said the nomination of a non-worker was shocking.

A veteran politician, he said the nominee’s relatives had always campaigned against the PPP candidates.

He demanded that a probe should be conducted into the affair and stern action taken against the party’s Punjab secretary-general for showing disloyalty.