Senior leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz have started giving serious consideration to the name of Baloch nationalist leader Sardar Attaullah Mengal for the office of president.
Sources revealed on Thursday that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during his consultative meeting with senior leaders of the party recently expressed his desire that if Mengal agrees, he would be made a presidential candidate.
The sources further said that in the next couple of days, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and some other senior PML-N leaders would formally seek the opinion of Sardar Mengal. As leader of the opposition in National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar had earlier suggested making Mengal the caretaker prime minister which the elderly Sardar had politely refused.
Meanwhile, the name of another PML-N central leader from Balochistan, Sardar Yaqub Nasir, is also under consideration. An important party leader said that Nasir could be a potential presidential candidate from Balochistan.
