GUJRAT, Jan 12: Local workers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz have urged the party leadership to steer clear of forging any alliance or merger with the PML-Q.

Chaudhry Mubashar Husain, former MNA and a close relative of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, was the first person who raised the point at a ceremony of joining the PML-N by some political activists of Gujrat.

During the ceremony organised by the city chapter of PML N, he said he had left the 80-year-old political relations with the Chaudhrys only because of the ideological differences with them. He urged the party leadership to avoid joining hands with the Q-League.

PML-N’s Kharian tehsil president Chaudhry Jaafar Iqbal said the leadership must not let those betrayers to join the party who had left the PML-N and the leadership in time of need. He said workers were ready to bear hardships but they could not accept the betrayers.

PML-N city president Javed Butt and Dr Ali Ahmad Tahir said party workers of Gujrat had experienced more difficulties than workers of other parts of the country. They said local workers had always followed directions and policies of the leadership in tough times, especially when the Sharif brothers were compelled to accept a forced exile.

Punjab Prisons Minister Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor, who was the chief guest, assured party workers that Nawaz Sharif would not join hands with the Chaudhrys because they were never proved trust-worthy.

He acknowledged the sacrifices rendered by party workers of Gujrat during the eight long years of the Musharraf rule.

District president Malik Hanif Awan, who chaired the meeting, did not deliver a speech owing to sickness.

On the proposed merger of the PML-N and the PML-Q, Mr Awan later told Dawn that he would accept whatever decision the party leadership took.

RALLY: Over 200 activists of the PML-N on Monday staged a rally against Israeli aggression against Palestinians.

The rally, led by city president Javed Butt, started from the Court Road and terminated at Chowk Pakistan where participants demonstrated and burnt Israeli flags.