LAHORE: In the ceremony that was held on Sunday to unveil the first set of bogies of the Orange Line Metro Train Project in Lahore, Lord Mayor Colonel (retd) Mubashir Javaid did not speak, raising suspicion about his influence and standing within the ranks of the ruling party.
Mubashir Javaid, who was selected by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was elected unopposed as the lord mayor of the provincial capital in December last year. Javaid has been known to be on good terms with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) senior leadership for the past two decades, especially Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his companions.
However, he was not given a chance to speak at the event in which Shehbaz Sharif spoke at length about the significance of the project and used the occasion to criticise its detractors.
Earlier, there have been rumours of rift within PML-N, ever since the Panama Papers controversy came to the fore. Former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali went public with his grievances with Nawaz Sharif and his policy in dealing with the aftermath of the case and subsequence NAB references. Since then much has been said of a deepening divide within the ruling party and the way Mubashir Javaid was not involved in the ceremony points to the same direction as well.
