LAHORE, April 13: Facing competition among potential contenders for party tickets in each constituency in the provincial metropolis, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz is taking ‘unusual’ steps while making final choice of candidates.

In this connection, on Saturday the party invited one worker from each constituency to take his or her opinion about various probables for the contest.

However, the party’s parliamentary board was not taken on board regarding the exercise and a senior leader told Dawn that PML-N president Nawaz Sharif also stayed away from the ‘workers’ session’.

The party leader claimed that most of those presented as ‘workers’ were new faces for him.

He feared that an attempt was being made to accommodate some ‘unwanted’ people through the exercise being undertaken parallel to the system laid for deciding party tickets.

Former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, Lahore chapter PML-N president Pervaiz Malik, Khwaja Saad Rafiq and other local leaders listened to the workers at the Model Town office.

When this reporter tried to contact Pervaiz Malik for his comments, his secretary replied that the former MNA was in a meeting and could not take calls.

The party had earlier invited its presidents and general secretaries from each constituency to get their views about potential candidates.