LAHORE, April 4: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz will give ticket to only one candidate from party’s Likeminded group, which rejected all offers from the Pakistan People’s Party and stood by the Shahbaz government during governor’s rule in Punjab.

A senior PML-N official told Dawn that the party would consider only Salim Saifullah (Lucky Marwat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) for ticket and no other Likeminded nominee would be accommodated.

He said JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman was being persuaded not to contest the election against Saifullah in Lucky Marwat. He said the PML-N leadership was under pressure from the party cadre in major urban centres like Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala and Faisalabad and could face resistance if ‘outsiders’ were accommodated at the cost of ‘deserving’ candidates and workers.

He said Hamid Nasir Chattha and Humayun Akhtar Khan would not be given tickets from Gujranwala and Lahore, respectively. Khan, he said, had been told by the Sharifs that he should ask Likeminded (ex-president) Arbab Ghulam Rahim to hold parleys with them on the ticket. Mr Rahim has already resigned as the Likeminded president and formed his own party titled People’s League.

When asked that Likeminded leaders like Kashmala Tariq were saying that the PML-N had assured them of 30 National Assembly seats in a political agreement signed in May last year by the leadership of both sides, the official said the Likeminded came closer to the PML-N only after seeing that the party would form the next government.

He said Chattha lost his seat to PML-N’s Iftikhar Chaudhry in the last general election so how the party could stop a winner from retaining his seat in the next election?

Khan had submitted nominations for NA-118, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127 and 130 constituencies (Lahore) besides NA-79 (Faisalabad) in the hope that he would get PML-N ticket in any of these constituencies before withdrawal of nominations.