Chaudhry Nisar’s 34-year-long political career is on the rocks for the first time. With his erstwhile friend Shahbaz Sharif issuing tickets to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidates to contest elections against him, Nisar is now an outcast for the first time since he joined the party in mid 1980s.
Party tickets were released to media on June 24, a day after most of the Punjab tickets were issued fielding no candidates against Nisar. While everybody wondered what happened within 24 hours or less, background discussions with sources within the party revealed what has been cooking up behind the curtains.
Interestingly, the date of the tickets issued against Chaudhry Nisar bore the date of Saturday, June 23. When the Punjab slate was announced on this day, Shahbaz Sharif did not issue tickets on both NA-59 and NA-63, where Chaudhry Nisar had submitted his nomination forms.
Sources privy to the developments told The Friday Times that soon after the news about Chaudhry Nisar’s vacant seats broke, alarm bells were heard in London, where former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his heir apparent Maryam Nawaz Sharif are currently looking after Begum Kulsoom Nawaz.
Kulsoom Nawaz and Maryam Nawaz defying a ban on public rallies in 1999
“They were shocked. Nawaz not only asked his younger brother to issue tickets against Chaudhry Nisar, he also urged him to send him the copies of the ticket,” insists a source privy to the development. Lo and behold, the tickets were issued on Sunday afternoon but to dampen the ire of the elder Sharif, the tickets were issued in bearing Saturday’s date. Just a day earlier on Friday, Chaudhry Nisar had addressed a press conference in Islamabad to hold another press conference after the health of Begum Kulsoon Nawaz improved. Many in the media mocked his press conference but missed important clarifications where he said he was not against the party and also insisted that he had not uttered unkind words against Nawaz Sharif or his daughter. Sources now insist that it was actually a mercy petition to get the party ticket. Shahbaz Sharif did not issue tickets to anybody on Saturday after this presser but after too much noise not only by Nawaz and his daughter but also but also by Khawaja Asif, who happened to be in London, the tide turned against the Chaudhry of Chakri.
Earlier, sources closer to Shahbaz Sharif were supporting the move and seeing it as extension of an olive branch to the former interior minister. “Chaudhry Nisar has no other option. He won’t be acceptable in any other party because of his chronic narcissism and ego that is higher than Himalayas and deeper than the oceans,” said a source rather sympathetic to Nisar who further added that, “After elections, he will be back to support Shahbaz Sharif and we will live happy ever after.”
But come Sunday morning Khawaja Asif, who earlier admitted on many channels that he has not talked to Chaudhry Nisar in years, went on Twitter and attacked Nisar without naming him. Earlier on Saturday night, a senior leader of the party close to Maryam and Nawaz Sharif conveyed his disappointment by saying some of our leaders still wanted to keep him in for rainy days.
Relations between Nisar and Nawaz have not been too warm through the entire period Nawaz was elected prime minister in 2013. Pakistan People’s Party leadership constantly held Nisar responsible for the failure of the National Action Plan and reprisals against them in Sindh by Rangers when Nisar headed the Interior Ministry. Relations between the two were at their lowest a year before Nawaz Sharif was sent packing by the Apex Court on July 28, last year. Nawaz earlier had fired his close confidante Pervaiz Rasheed and Tariq Fatemi on Nisar’s advice to ease strained relations with the Miltablishment following the DAWN leaks story published on October, 6, 2016.
Even a day before Nawaz Sharif was disqualified on July 28, 2017, Chaudhry Nisar, then the interior minister, addressed a rather unusual press conference painting a doomsday scenario and suggesting Nawaz Sharif not to criticise the judiciary and the Miltablishment, a narrative he has held till today.
Although, Nawaz Sharif always gave him important positions and ministries throughout his three decades of association, the Chakri leader was not liked by now ailing Kulsoom Nawaz. They go way back when Nawaz Sharif was incarcerated after October 12, 1999 coup detat when Begum Kulsoom had to launch the movement against military dictator General (r) Pervez Musharraf. When she contacted Chaudhry Nisar to help in Rawalpindi area with the protest, he told her that he could not do anything as he was under house arrest. Kulsoom felt betrayed when she was told that he was free to move about and had used his detention only as an excuse. Only party loyalists like Chaudhry Tanvir Khan, despised by Nisar, had helped Begum Kulsoon then. “She has never forgotten that and now almost a daily barrage by Nisar against her daughter Maryam has convinced Nawaz Sharif that Nisar can no longer be trusted,” said a senior journalist in Islamabad who keeps track of these relationships.
“Nisar has visited his constituency recently and at many places he has received a cold response as many in his constituency associate the last 10 year development work as the kindness of the PML-N government more than the individual patronage of the Chaudhry. He sounds desperate to win to maintain his relevance in national politics and he may actually pull it off from NA-59 as the new delimitation has only helped him rather than hurting him,” said a political pundit in Islamabad.
The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has issued both tickets for NA-59 and NA-63 to Chaudhry Ghulam Sarwar Khan but reportedly he has not done much in NA-59, which makes it clear that probably Imran Khan wants Nisar to slip through to the parliament on NA-59 to hurt the PML-N.
Sources say, Imran and Nisar believe that after Nisar makes it to the National Assembly, he will launch his group of independents to provide much numerical strength to the PTI to form the government in Islamabad.
The PML-N has now issued the ticket to Engineer Raja Qamarul Islam on NA-59, who got a record number of votes on the provincial assembly seat in the same constituency in 2013. This makes the contest even more crucial.
The trouble with Chaudhry Nisar is that he has not grown out of the earlier mode of Zia-era Muslim League while his party leader Nawaz and most of his associates have changed with over time as the party shifted from extreme rightwing to the centre-right position. Started as the Miltabishment’s shield, it has turned into an outfit that collides with it more often than other parties.
“Nisar feels suffocated and uncomfortable in his own party, just like iiyalas feel in the PPP led by Asif Zardari,” quipped an analyst about the state of the affairs in the PML-N.
