Daily Times

LAHORE: Taking to the popular social media platform Twitter, former Minister for Railways and senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khawaja Saad Rafique expressed his regret over his party’s estrangement with former PML-N stalwart Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, and claimed that talks with Nisar had been progressing before they ended up collapsing.

“We did not want the talks to fail but this is how it is now,” the former Minister wrote on Twitter.

The saga of Chaudhry Nisar’s estrangement with the PML-N came to an end when he announced on the 11th of June that he would contest the upcoming elections as an independent candidate.

Party leadership, meanwhile, had been mulling giving the veteran politician a ticket, with PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif apparently not interested in giving his former confidant a party ticket.

Reports had also emerged of a rift between the Sharif brothers, with Shehbaz Sharif in favour of bringing Nisar back into the fold, and making him contest the upcoming elections on a party ticket.

Nisar, for his part, voiced his opposition to the party’s stance after the Panama Verdict, and claimed that the party had awarded tickets to ‘political orphans’.

He also claimed that the PTI had ’10 faults’, while the PML-N had a ‘100 faults’.