With pressure mounting on Shahbaz Sharif to quit after the Lahore High Court (LHC) ordered that Justice Ali Baqar Najafi report on the 2014 Model Town tragedy be made public, the PML-N’s stronghold Punjab is slowly turning into a political battleground.

The LHC order has come at a time when the Punjab government was already under pressure from the Sunni religious groups after Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah issued a statement that sympathised with the Ahmadi community. In reaction, the Sunni religious groups have started to demand Sanaullah’s resignation.

Alongside, as if to add fuel to fire, most opposition parties in the country are supporting Dr Tahirul Qadri to launch a massive public campaign after the disclosures made in the Najafi report.

The Punjab government made this 132-page long report public after the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) pursued for months the case of Model Town that killed 14 people on June 17, 2014. As the report points fingers at the officials of the provincial government and law enforcement agencies, it is understandable why the Punjab government resisted making the report public.

"The operation planned and designed under the chairmanship of the then provincial law minister, Rana Sanaullah, resulted in gruesome killings could have easily been avoided," states the Najafi report.

The three-member bench of LHC also declared that the Najafi report would not impact the ongoing trial of the 2014 incident in the Anti-Terrorist Court.

"The Najafi report does not have any legal impact. Though it has significant political impact," says Arif Nizami, senior journalist. He feels that it will be good for the PML-N leadership to take action against Rana Sanaullah in the light of findings of the report.

The Punjab government is already feeling the heat. Five PML-N legislators -- two from National Assembly and three from Punjab Assembly -- have announced to quit the assemblies and the party in a public gathering of several thousand Sunni protestors led by Pir Hameedudin Sialvi of Sargodha. The pir is predicting more resignations from legislators of the ruling party in Gujranwala today (Dec 17).

Sialvi, along with other religious groups, is seeking Punjab law minister’s resignation for sympathising with Ahmadi community. While threatening a long march, he said, "If the Punjab law minister does not quit, the whole government will be sent packing."

He has a huge following in districts Sargodha, Faisalabad and Jhang.

"Opposition parties are targeting Punjab because it is a stronghold of the ruling PML-N. Such moves may dent the party," says political analyst Tahir Mehdi. He thinks it will be difficult for the religious groups to get Sanaullah to resign.

"I don’t see that the current moves of the opposition will drastically impact the ruling PML-N -- because the party has created a strong vote bank in Punjab over the years," he adds.

"The major political parties are trying to use PAT for their particular political gains for the time being," says Murtaza Solangi, another political analyst. "The Sunni Barelvi vote bank has shaken the ruling PML-N only slightly. The major opposition parties -- Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Pakistan People’s Party -- will not be able to challenge them in Punjab. Only cases pending in the National Accountability Court can weaken them as a party."

Adding to the political troubles of the ruling elite, National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, in a private television interview, feared the present assemblies might not complete their constitutional tenure till end May 2018. "I’m not an astrologer… I hope it [National Assembly] completes its constitutional term but I don’t foresee it happening," he said, while speaking to Geo on Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada key Sath on Dec 13.

The PML-N is facing resistance from the opposition parties in the National Assembly on the new delimitations bill which may affect the schedule of the next general elections.

Last Thursday, the opposition parties in the Senate criticised how the PML-N dealt with the Faizabad sit-in of Sunni religious parties that ended with the resignation of Federal Law Minister Zahid Hamid. They called it a "national shame day" for the PML-N -- for surrendering to the demands of protestors.

"Sadiq’s statement is one example of disappointment being felt among the PML-N leadership and workers," says Arif Nizami. "I think if the PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif continues to follow its hawkish policy against the judiciary and the military establishment, he may only harm the party."