LAHORE, Sept 18: The PML-N wants to defeat its arch rival PML-QA President Mian Muhammad Azhar on NA-118 (Lahore) at all costs and for this purpose party chief Mian Shahbaz Sharif has telephoned JUI-F amir Maulana Fazlur Rehman to request him that he should withdraw his party candidate Hafiz Abdul Wadood from the constituency and extend support to Hafiz Salman Butt.
However, according to JUI sources, Maulana Fazlur Rehman has expressed his inability to be of any help to the PML-N at this juncture. He told the exiled leader that the JUI’s local organization alone was in a position to take any decision.
The local organization is in no mood to withdraw Hafiz Abdul Wadood as he has already started his campaign.
The PML-N thinks that in case the JUI candidate remains in the field, Hafiz Salman will not be in a position to give the former Punjab governor a tough fight even if the remaining parties in the Muttahida Majlas-i-Amal stood behind him.
Efforts to seek the JUI-F support for Hafiz Salman are continuing although there is, ostensibly, no hope that they will yield any results.
CONVENTION: A joint convention of workers of the PML-N and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal will be held here on Thursday afternoon which will be addressed by leaders of the two sides.
According to a press release, the convention will mark the launch of PML-N leader Pervaiz Malik’s election campaign.
EU TEAM: The PML-N told a European Union delegation here on Wednesday that the government wanted to hijack the elections by keeping the leadership of various parties out of the electoral process.
Vice-President Muhammad Akram Zaki and Punjab Secretary-General Khwaja Saad Rafiq said at a meeting with the delegation that the governor houses had been turned into centres to mastermind pre-poll rigging.
The election commission, they said, had so far not released attested voter lists because of which the results of the polls would remain doubtful. Similarly, they said, the election commission had not given receipts of the amounts submitted to it by parties which had impaired its neutrality.
The district governments had been tasked to manipulate results. It was the first time that the election staff was being appointed by the district government rather than the election commission.
The PML-N leaders said that the code of conduct issued by the election commission was not being adhered to by the king’s party.
PTI MEN: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf Faisalabad district president Sajjad Gul Murshad and some other office-bearers have joined the PML-QA.
At the ceremony at which he announced his decision, he alleged that PTI chief Imran Khan wanted to come to power through backdoor because of which he could not take his party to the masses. Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, embroiled in a war of words with Imran Khan, welcomed the defections and said no man of principles could like to stay in the PTI. He branded Imran Khan as a hyporcrite.