Candidates to be given tickets on parliamentary board's recommendation: Shehbaz

LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Friday said that candidates will be awarded party tickets for the forthcoming elections on the recommendation of the party's parliamentary board.

Following his return from London, the PML-N president chaired a meeting in Lahore to oversee the party’s plan for the upcoming election, which was attended by senior party representatives including Shehbaz’s son Hamza.

Addressing the meeting, Shehbaz said that candidates will be given priority on the basis of merit, discipline and loyalty with the party.

The PML-N leadership mulled over its electoral strategy for Lahore following former MPA Zaeem Qadri’s outburst on Thursday.

Qadri, at a fiery press conference, had claimed he would no longer be subservient to Shehbaz and Hamza, and lashed out at not being given a ticket to contest the July 25 election from NA-133. The former MPA had vowed to contest the upcoming polls from Lahore as an independent candidate.

‘Lahore doesn’t belong to you or your father’, Zaeem Qadri tells Hamza Shehbaz

The disgruntled PML-N leader said he won't polish Hamza's boots

Sources said that PML-N leader Pervez Malik is likely to get the party ticket from National Assembly constituency NA-125.

Malik's chances of getting the party ticket have cast doubt over former provincial minister Bilal Yasin's candidacy from the same constituency. Yasin, a relative of Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, insists that he should contest the election from NA-125, if Maryam Nawaz chooses to run for NA-127 seat, according to sources.

They said that Malik, for contesting the election from NA-125, has put forth the condition that Yasin would also not be given ticket to contest for provincial assembly seat PP-150.

Speaking to Geo News, Yasin said he was contesting for the provincial assembly and not a National Assembly seat. "If Maryam Nawaz contests the election from NA-125 then I will contest the polls from PP-150," he said.

Yasin claimed that he had spoken to Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz in this regard, before they left for London.

According to sources, former NA speaker Ayaz Sadiq, who is contesting from NA-129, may be given a party ticket to contest against Qadri from NA-133.

Following today's meeting, PML-N Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) leaders Amir Muqam and Murtaza Javed Abbasi called on Shehbaz.

They apprised the party president of the political campaign in the province, along with the distribution of party tickets.