FAISALABAD, Aug 8: Differences have cropped up between the local leadership of the PML-N over the fielding of candidates for nazims and naib nazims of eight towns and city district governments.

One of the groups led by former MNA Chaudhry Sher Ali, MNA Abid Sher Ali, City PML-N president and former MPA Khwaja Islam, general secretary and former MPA Zeeshan Elahi Shah and others, claimed to have the backing of former premier Nawaz Sharif for fielding the candidates.

They said the city organizations of the party had legal right to nominate candidates for different offices in consultation with former parliamentarians and other leaders of the party. Some of the party stalwarts had set up separate groups in violation of the party rules and started nominating candidates without consulting and taking the party organization into confidence, they added.

Mr Sher Ali, a close relative of the Sharifs, said he was working to strengthen the party in the city and its rural areas but the other group was creating hurdles in his way to please their “government masters.”

The second group comprising MNA Raja Nadir Pervaiz, MPAs Rana Sanaullah, Sheikh Ijaz Ahmad and Malik Nawaz, former MNA Mian Abdul Mannan and others, said at a news conference here on Monday the city organization of the party had absolutely no right to field the candidates on its own.

They claimed that only sitting parliamentarians could nominate candidates in towns of their respective constituencies. A group in the party was issuing statements and announcing decisions about the candidates on its own which could be ‘disastrous’ for the unity of the party.

Both the group leaders blamed each other for playing in the hands of agencies to provide a chance to the government-backed candidates to win election.

The PML-N had been divided into two groups since the toppling of the Nawaz Sharif government and leaders of these groups used to launch mudslinging campaign against each other.

The central and provincial leaders of the party had been informed about the differences a number of times by the workers but the controversy could not be resolved.