Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Punjab President Rana Sanaullah said Friday that his party would be contesting the polls solo in Punjab and will field candidates in all constituencies of the national and provincial assemblies in the province.
In a news conference in Lahore, the interior minister said: “The PML-N is beginning its electoral activities and for this purpose, an organisational meeting of the Punjab [chapter] has been called. The primary agenda that will be discussed is our resolve to take forward the election activity in Punjab with full force. All national and provincial constituencies, which number 433 — 297 of which are provincial and 146 are NA constituencies — in all those, a PML-N candidate will be present,” he asserted.
Rana Sana said it had been the case sometimes that in a few constituencies, the PML-N had not fielded its candidates for the elections.
However, this time, the party has taken it as a challenge to ensure that its party symbol — the lion— would be present in every constituency, he added.
Recalling that the PML-N had organised the party in Punjab up to the Union Council level, the minister expressed his party’s intentions to fully back its candidates in the upcoming elections.
He also said there was a possibility that in constituencies where the party would need help including southern Punjab, there could be talks with other parties about seat adjustments.
“If a party talks about seat adjustment, our criteria would be that we would not compromise on our winning and dedicated candidates,” he said.
Rana Sana went on to recall the PML-N’s achievements during its past tenures, specifically mentioning the 1999 tests that made Pakistan a nuclear power.
Recalling the party’s tenure from 2013-2018 and the party supremo Nawaz Sharif’s ouster, the PML-N leader said that a conspiracy was hatched at a time when “all newspapers were saying that Pakistan was becoming an economic power”.
The minister then proceeded to criticise the previous PTI government, saying that it “divided the country’s politics and injected poison in it, and misled the youth”.
He lamented that “false cases were made under political vendetta” against his party leadership and “innocent people were sent to jail”.
Insisting that the coalition government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has once again brought the country out of economic crises and saved it from default, the PML-N leader vowed to put the country back on the path of progress after elections.
“If the public trust us this time, we will not disappoint you,” the minister asserted while saying the PML-N’s first and foremost priority was ending the ongoing crises and the country’s prosperity.