- End of Nisar-Nawaz enigmatic relationship?
The PML-N stalwart and party founder-member, Chaudhry Nisar, has over the past year made oblique comments about the party leader and his policies, and remained seemingly poised on the verge of ending his much-trumpeted 34-year association with the three-time former ruling party, but never crossing the Rubicon. Among the PML-N’s hawks and doves, a distinction that has lately sharpened, he clearly belonged to the latter species, calling for restraint in the daily chorus of attacks against the military and judiciary that had become an integral part of Nawaz Sharif’s post-disqualification ‘ideological’ strategy. Personal differences also surfaced over Maryam Nawaz’s grooming as de facto successor (though officially younger brother Shahbaz Sharif was the chosen dynastic inheritor) in case the party made a comeback at the 2018 polls, a decision that the much senior Chaudhry of Chakri simply could not stomach. It would, however, appear that the peeved leader’s Monday outpourings in his native village while addressing an election public meeting finally brings down the curtain on his estrangement, a final burning of the boats as regards his long PML-N affiliation. It remains to be seen what comes first, whether he formally resigns from the party or is kicked out.
For Nawaz Sharif facing uncertain judicial decisions and looming disasters on multiple fronts, close colleague Chaudhry Nisar’s departure comes at a particularly inopportune time, and he can with miffed justification cry out, ‘Eh tu Brute’? At Monday’s election meeting, now independent candidate Nisar, among other things, questioned Nawaz’s claim and eligibility for party leadership in the 1990s, made much of the latter’s political indebtedness to him, boasted of never compromising on principles or conscience himself, and threatened to expose the inner politics of Nawaz and Maryam at a future date, in consideration of Kalsoom Nawaz’s present critical health. Some of this needs to be taken with a pinch of salt as the criticism comes only at the end of parliament’s term, with Nawaz ousted from public office for life, and after Nisar himself had presided over the formidable ministry of the interior since long.
