ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif has directed his party’s candidates contesting May 11 elections “to ensure door-to-door campaign personally” and to reach out to every family in their respective constituencies by April 30.

“Every family must be visited and literature containing leadership’s message, PML-N’s achievements and our future plans from manifesto may please be delivered,” says the directive issued by Mr Sharif.

When contacted by telephone, deputy secretary general of the party Ahsan Iqbal, who is busy in running the campaign for the National Assembly seat from Narowal, said though running a door-to-door campaign was an important part of the SOP (standard operating procedure) for electioneering across the world, the party leadership wanted its strict implementation for the May 11 polls.

Mr Iqbal regretted that the PML-N had constantly been demanding change in bureaucracy at the centre as well as in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, but to no avail. He called for providing a level playing field to all the political parties in the coming general elections and said a massive change in bureaucracy was needed in three provinces as it had already done in Punjab by the caretaker government.

Stating that there is no excuse for delaying the elections, the PML-N leader urged the people to participate in the elections and cast their votes in favour of his party so that it could form a strong government.

A PML-N spokesman, Asim Khan, said the directives for ensuring door-to-door campaign had been issued by Mr Sharif keeping in view the fact that the candidates had this time got limited time to run the campaign due to an unprecedented and lengthy process of nomination papers’ scrutiny.

He said the party leadership believed that an effective door-to-door campaign would help candidates in reaching out to their constituents and spreading the party’s message to the masses at grassroots level.