The Sharifs in pressure cooker

Are more leaders in the queue?

The PML-N has finally nominated Shahbaz Sharif as acting president of the ruling party. This would put an end to speculations regarding who is to be Nawaz Sharif’s successor in case he is disqualified for the office by the Supreme Court. The delay in the announcement was promoting bickering and misunderstandings in the party.

The most recent headache for the party is the Ashiana housing scandal. Alarm bells started ringing when the Punjab chief minister was questioned at length by NAB over the scam. A new dimension was added to the leadership’s worries when former prime minster Nawaz Sharif’s principal secretary, Fawad Hassan Fawad, was grilled by NAB over the issue. The probe into the housing scheme has led to the arrest of former LDA chief who is one of the blue-eyed boys of Shahbaz Sharif and is reportedly singing like a canary now. The leads provided by him helped the NAB arrest a land developer, a key figure in the scam who reportedly acts on behalf of a federal minister.

NAB is now being asked to probe the Orange Train and Metro Bus projects. The party leadership’s worries however do not end there. The time given by the SC to the accountability judge to decide the cases against Nawaz Sharif, Maryam, her husband and Ishaq Dar would end within the next few weeks. Any adverse judgment and that too in corruption and money-laundering cases would be highly damaging for the image of Nawaz Sharif and his immediate family.

Whatever the verdict in corruption-cum-money laundering cases, the revelations in Ashiana housing scam have already called into question Shahbaz Sharif’s tall claims about the so called “Punjab speed,” transparency and good governance. Three years back Shahbaz had promised to hand over keys of five hundred houses to the low income people who had paid the initial amount plus some of the installments.  This turned out to be a hoax. The claim made by PM Abbasi regarding PML-N being the only party which completed every project that it started sounds hollow after the Ashiana housing scam, the only project probed so far by NAB.