Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif may have survived the challenge thrown to his rule by the resilient marchers of Imran Khan and Dr Tahirul Qadri, but “the haranguing twins” remain a pain in the neck of his PML-N.

Signs are that the rank and file of the party feel the pain more. They believe their leadership compromised its position in dealing with “the political rowdies”.

Even second tier PML-N leaders ask why the leadership had to seek the help of the opposition parties when it had the strength inside and outside the parliament to confront the challengers on its own. Some of them disgruntled over being “consigned to political wilderness” view the mauling of their mighty leaders as deserved.

“A little bit of coordination within the party would have put up a much better defence against the challengers and their marchers than what our government achieved by running to the other parties,” the disgruntled argued in background discussions.

According to them the PML-N leadership and government “over-exposed” themselves by seeking the support of parliamentary parties.

In their view the government weakened its position by winning the likes of PPP on its side to battle with the anti-democratic protesters.

“Almost every PPP lawmaker who addressed the joint sitting of the parliament decried our way of governance. Some, notably Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, not only called the PML-N government corrupt but also endorsed PTI’s allegation of election rigging. Do you call this support,” rued a PML-N MNA recalling the stormy session.

Just seeing PPP’s Syed Khursheed Shah and JUI-F Chief Fazlur Rehman flanking Mian Nawaz Sharif during the crisis was revolting “to the real, hard-core Muslim Leaguers like me,” he said.

“After all, we had been baying for their blood until recently. Now the popular perception is that our government survived only because of the so-called critical support of (the former president) Zardari.”

Many PML-N lawmakers, not part of the party’s inner sanctum, hold the view that the Sharif brothers should have taken the party into confidence and worked out its own strategy rather than looking for help from outside the party.

Whichever way the events turn, it will be the PML-N legislators and its workers who will be bearing the consequences eventually. So why not take them on board in the first instant in matters of life or death for the party, said one PML-N MNA.

But that looked “a fat chance” to him when the prime minister has not bothered to meet the parliamentary board of the party, what to speak of meeting the ordinary workers of the party. Even the Central Executive Committee of the PML-N last met around the May 2013 general elections.

“Other political parties try to close their ranks in times of crisis. Ours remains on auto-pilot all the time,” responded a senior PML-N office-bearer when inquired about the party’s line of action as the pain-in-the-neck Imran Khan heads to storm Lahore, the citadel of PML-N next Sunday.

After his PTI’s successful rally in Karachi the previous Sunday, the Kaptaan and his team threaten to take their tsunami all over the country.

But the PML-N ranks feel depressed that their party is just about the two Sharif brothers, and by extension, in descending order, to relative Senator Ishaq Dar, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Information Minister Senator Pervez Rashid and lately retired Lt-Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch, according to the party office-bearer.

A MNA who was elected as independent but joined the PML-N described his experience in the party as “nightmarish”.

“I am feeling like a rudderless ship,” he told Dawn. “You can imagine that feeling in a party where even cabinet ministers are heard complaining about lack of government support. We stand nowhere there.”

And he is least bothered about the outcome of the ongoing political impasse. “It doesn’t matter to me because I am in position to be of any use to my constituents,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2014