LAHORE, Oct 31: Elders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz met at Raiwind residence of the Sharifs here on Wednesday to chalk out a strategy for the forthcoming general elections.
A delegation of Likeminded faction of the Muslim League also called on PML-N President Nawaz Sharif to discuss modalities of their electoral alliance.
With Nawaz Sharif in the chair, Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Ahsan Iqbal, Khwaja Asif, Sirdar Zulfikar Khosa and Rana Sanaullah discussed reports of divisional committees formed a couple of months ago to recommend party’s potential candidates for each national and provincial assembly constituency and to sort out issues facing the people and the party at local level.
The reports had pointed out groupings within the party’s various chapters and the challenges likely to be faced in some constituencies, one of the participants said.
The leaders decided to form committees at the district level to get a ‘final electoral picture’ of the constituencies and find out new probable nominees where needed, he said.
These bodies would be tasked to not only approach the likely candidates and party organisations and wings but also seek opinion from neutral segments of society to add to the worth of the reports, he added.
Mr Jhagra, along with former chief ministers Mehtab Abbasi and Pir Sabir Shah, has been empowered to set up the committees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while ex-chief ministers Ghaus Ali Shah and Arbab Ghulam Rahim will do the job in Sindh.
Names for Punjab and Balochistan will be finalised in a subsequent meeting.
Meanwhile, the Likeminded team led by former National Assembly speaker Hamid Nasir Chattha discussed election strategy and alliance matters with Nawaz Sharif and other PML-N leaders.
The Likeminded faction is demanding 11 per cent seat quota while the N League is not committing anything in this respect.
Mr Jhagra told Dawn that no specific seat had yet been promised to the Likeminded.
To a query, he said the party had not decided so far who would contact the other factions of the League and parties for making a grand alliance against the PPP government.