LAHORE: An internal fight is brewing in the PML-N pitting Shahbaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz against each other for the party leadership, according to federal Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry.

“At present there’s a fight going on within the PML-N to occupy the party leadership. Shahbaz and Maryam camps are face to face.

“Maryam will be able to do active politics only if Shahbaz Sharif is removed as president,” the minister told reporters on Sunday.

Shahbaz Sharif was active against the Maryam camp to keep his hold on the party and as long as this infighting was not over, he won’t join the proposed multi-party conference of the opposition, Fawad Chaudhry said.

“The PML-N will be able to decide a strategy against the government only after it is free from its internal fight.”

He told a questioner that the opposition had no political role to play at present as, according to him, both Bilawal Bhutto and Shahbaz Sharif had such a weak following among the masses that they won’t be able to attract enough people to fill a public meeting venue the size of a marriage hall.

“The PPP we used to know was a chain holding all the four provinces together. Now the situation is that Asif Ali Zardari is unable to find enough people to accompany him during his appearance before an accountability court in Rawalpindi.

“Mr Zardari is spending tens of millions of rupees to bus people from Sindh for the purpose,” claimed Mr Chaudhry, who has served the PPP as its spokesperson for several years.

In reply to a question about the Punjab chief minister, Fawad Chaudhry said anyone could succeed him if he was removed from office.

“The whole assembly [all ruling party legislators] will vie for the job of the provincial chief executive,” the minister said.

“If Usman Buzdar can become the chief minister anyone else can.”

He, however, defended Mr Buzdar in the liquor licence case the National Account­ability Bureau (NAB) is investigating.

“They [the NAB] ridiculed the office of chief minister by summoning him to the anti-corruption body’s office. This office must not have been ridiculed.

“The state institutions must be strengthened and the CM office is also an institution,” he argued.

Lauding NAB Chairman Javed Iqbal for having done a great job against corruption, Mr Chaudhry suggested that if and when the anti-corruption top watchdog summoned someone, its spokesperson should formally brief the media about the case.

Asked about the role the PML-Q, an ally of the ruling PTI, is currently playing in politics, the federal minister said whatever the allies were doing could not be termed politics of blackmail.

The minister said PML-Q leader Chaudhry Parvez Elahi was a senior politician and was in alliance with the PTI only because the Q-League saw “some ­benefit for itself”.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2020