Party ticket: No rift between Nawaz, Shahbaz over Nisar: Pervaiz Rashid

LAHORE: PML-N senior leader Senator Pervaiz Rashid on Saturday said there was no incongruity between Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif regarding awarding party ticket to Chaudhry Nisar for the 2018 Elections.

“Nobody is above party discipline, only those who would appear before the parliamentary board will be considered for the party ticket,” he made it clear.

He was talking to reporters at an Iftar dinner hosted by the PML-N and organised by Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed and Muhammad Mehdi for media persons.

Pervaiz said Nawaz had the final word in making party policy and he believed in respecting the party policy, that’s why he too would appear before the parliamentary board.

“No one is above party discipline, Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal, Baleegh-ur-Rahman all appeared before the parliamentary board”, he said.

Pervaiz said it was imperative that a level playing field would be given to all political parties to contest elections and any failure to do so would obviously raise questions regarding the credibility of electoral process. “The PML-N has registered its concerns regarding the Punjab caretaker chief minister and stands by it,” he said.

Talking about Pervez Musharraf contesting elections, he said, “It is an unfortunate thing that a person who abrogates the Constitution is given assurance of security and protection, while the one who stops this treasonous act is disqualified through a controversial decision.”

He said the people of Pakistan had out-rightly rejected the disqualification of Nawaz. “Those who predicted the disqualification of Nawaz well before time are now predicting him being sent to jail,” he added.

Pervez said he wouldn’t criticise the criteria on which certain parties had awarded tickets as it was their right; however, these choices would be graded in the elections.

PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb said the PTI’s candidates list was an assortment of the biggest ATMs and the biggest turncoats. “Every party has set its criteria for awarding tickets and the way decades-long PTI loyalists were mulled over by turncoats and investor mafia [for candidature] is evident from the visible dissent and protests by the PTI supporters and leaders,” she noted.

Marriyum said the PML-N had carried out unprecedented development both in infrastructure and economic sectors and also got rid of terrorism. “Let’s not forget that were over 2,600 terrorist attacks in Pakistan and now the situation is almost completely resolved,” she said.

Mushahid said the interest of people in getting the PMLN party ticket had been enormous and the scrutiny process was exhaustive, based on merit and disciplined.

He said the people of Pakistan had expressed their faith and appreciation for the work done by the PML-N government and were eager to vote again for their favourite PML-N candidates in the 2018 elections.