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ISLAMABAD: The seemingly tireless Marvi Memon is having a dream time with her new party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N. The party supremo, Mian Nawaz Sharif, has issued standing instructions to the party's rank and file to accord her special protocol wherever she goes in the country. As a result, she is being received by the party workers in good numbers.
However, there are many in the party, including some top guns, who are not happy with her entry because of her past association with the PML-Q."If she being a former two-time PML-Q MNA is accepted in the party, then what is wrong with the Chaudhrys and others who want to come back to the party," said a senior PML-N office-bearer.
Mr Sharif has made the return of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi conditional upon their public apology for siding with Gen Pervez Musharraf.
Ms Memon had not made such an apology before joining the party, said the party official.
Another PML-N member of the National Assembly termed Ms Memon's entry into the party a stab in the back which the party leadership didn't seem to realise at the moment.
She is being promoted all around as if her presence would ensure the PML-N a win in the next general election, he added.
Questioning the party leadership's decision, first accepting and then promoting her as new face of the party, the MNA said her support for Pervez Musharraf cannot be condoned.
"I am not the only one in the party who is feeling this way; there are many others who have no option but to hold their tongue since the party leadership is giving Ms Memon a special treatment," said the MNA.
But a senior member of the PML-N justified Ms Memon's inclusion in the party, saying that at a time when everybody was talking about PTI of Imran Khan, there was nothing wrong with her joining the party.
"At a time when she is being lobbied by Imran Khan himself to join his party as information secretary, her decision to side with the PML-N matters a lot for the party," the official said.
And people shouldn't forget that she had joined the PML-N without any party position promised to her in advance, he added.
The PML-N leader lavished more praise on Ms Memon. "She is a fabulous party worker who can travel day in and day out. And she has already started this."
With Imran Khan continuously terming the PML-N a spent force, the party leadership was desperately looking for somebody like Ms Memon to give it a new look.
"I think this is the only reason she has been straightaway accepted by the PML-N despite her baggage as a former PML-Q lawmaker and her affiliation with General Musharraf," said the party official.
