GUJRAT: Former PML-N MNA and party’s Gujranwala division president Abid Raza Kotla has refused to become a member of the Gujrat District Coordination Committee (DCC) headed by minister for industries Chaudhry Shafay Hussain of the PML-Q.

The provincial government has notified a 16-member DCC with at least eight lawmakers belonging to PML-Q and two to PML-N -- MNA Naseer Abbas Sidhu and Abid Raza Kotla.

The deputy commissioner is the secretary of the committee which also includes district police officer and chief executive officers of health and education authorities.

Talking to Dawn here on Monday, Mr Kotla said he had conveyed to the personal staff of CM Maryam Nawaz that he could not accept the membership of such a committee being headed by a Q leader who had just obtained 8,000 votes on the Punjab Assembly seat and still became a lawmaker and a provincial minister.

He said forging a coalition with the PML-Q might be a compulsion of party Quaid Nawaz Sharif but the Gujrat chapter of PML-N did not accept such an arrangement with those who had consistently harmed the local PML-N workers for long.

He vowed to do the politics of resistance against the Q-League and invited members of PTI’s Parvez Elahi camp in Gujrat to join him in resistance against the hegemony of PML-Q in the district.

The Gujrat district chapter of PML-N also held a consultative meeting on Sunday where issues pertaining to the local political and administration affairs were discussed.

Another former MNA Nawabzada Ghazanfar Ali Gul, the head of the Nawabzada family, said in a statement that despite having reservations over party’s arrangement with the PML-Q, he firmly stood with Mian Nawaz Sharif due to critical political and economic conditions of the country.

He said there was no question of joining hands with any of the factions of the rival Chaudhry family.

He announced an unconditional support to the party leadership but said he would convey or discuss his reservations in some meeting with the senior party leadership instead of publicly putting any pressure on them.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2024