TAXILA: Former federal minister and PTI central leader Ghulam Sarwar Khan has said the political inning of PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was over and if he joined the PTI he would be an “uninvited” guest in the party.

He was talking to newsmen at the PTI secretariat on Monday. Member National Assembly Mansoor Hayat Khan and Member Punjab Assembly Ammar Sadeeq Khan were also present.

Commenting on the recent statement of the estranged PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar that he may join the PTI ahead of the next general elections, Sarwar Khan made it clear that there was no room for Mr Nisar in the party.

Sarwar Khan is the political arch-rival of Chaudhry Nisar. The veteran politician contested the 2018 general elections as an independent candidate with the election symbol of “jeep” after developing differences with the party leadership.

He lost the National Assembly seat to Sarwar Khan but managed to win a Punjab Assembly seat from his hometown of Chakri.

After the four years of long hiatus, Chaudhry Nisar resurfaced on political arena and unveiled his strategy while addressing the party workers recently.

The two arch-rivals have a history of defeating each other from the same constituency. In the 1990 elections, for the first time IJI’s Chaudhry Nisar faced Sarwar Khan of the People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA). Chaudhry Nisar repeated the history in the 1993 elections when he defeated Sarwar Khan. During the elections 2008, Chaudhry Nisar as PML-N candidate defeated Sarwar Khan who contested the elections from the platform of PML-Q. In the 2002 elections, Sarwar Khan appeared as an independent candidate and managed to defeat Chaudhry Nisar. In the 2018 elections, Sarwar Khan again defeated Chaudhry Nisar and stopped his entry into the National Assembly.

Sarwar Khan while responding to a question said he does not foresee any political role of Chaudhry Nisar in national politics as no party, either PML-N or PTI, would issue him a ticket.

Responding to another question about launching his son by Chaudhry Nisar, Mr Sarwar claimed that his group does not see any political threat from him on his national as well as provincial assembly constituencies as he is strong enough to play against politically immature candidates.

Answering a question about the political hiccups in Punjab, he predicted that Punjab Assembly was inching towards dissolution followed by KP Assembly and subsequently no option would be left but to conduct general elections before time.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2022