GUJRAT: A former MPA of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, Chaudhry Arshad Mahmood, may get PML-N ticket for PP-114 (Sara-i-Alamgir) as a strong lobby in the party is active to sideline district president and ex-MNA Hanif Awan.

Winning NA-107 in December by-poll, Mr Awan was asked by the party leadership around two weeks ago to go for PP-114 rather than the National Assembly seat as the party wanted to oblige the Kotla group.

Sources in the party told Dawn that a group of former legislators of Gujrat district who had joined the PML-N after deserting the Chaudhrys, had been lobbying for a party ticket for Arshad Mahmood on the ground that the Awan camp may not support the Kotla group for NA-107.

To avoid such a situation, the group of new entrants is telling the party elders to award ticket to Arshad who was elected as PML-Q man in the last two general elections, but latter joined the Q’s forward bloc in the Punjab Assembly in 2009.

The sources said the party could seriously consider the option of replacing Awan even in PP-114.

Despite remaining part of the unification bloc and enjoying other privileges as a treasury member for more than three years, Arshad did not support PML-N’s Hanif Awan for NA-107 by-election and rather backed Rehman Naseer Marala, a joint candidate of the Q-PPP alliance.

Chaudhry Arshad is the younger brother of late Chaudhry Muhammad Farooq, the four-time member of the Punjab Assembly who also remained law minister in the cabinet of Chief Minister Manzoor Wattoo.

Soon after his election as MPA in 2002, Chaudhry Farooq was assassinated.

Chaudhry Arshad was then elected to the Punjab Assembly unopposed in the subsequent by-poll.

Hanif Awan and Farooq groups have been traditional rivals in Sara-i-Alamgir tehsil politics since 1993.

The sources said some of the senior party leaders were not happy with Hanif Awan who had been serving as the district president of Gujrat since 1999 as he resigned from the party office in August last due to ‘indifferent’ behaviour of the party leadership towards the cadres in Gujrat and acceptance of forward bloc’s MPA Mian Tariq Mahmood of Dinga, Chaudhry Arshad Mahmood and the Kotla group in the party.

However, party chief Nawaz Sharif had pledged to resolve the issues in a meeting with party men after which Awan and a number of other party officials from Gujrat had withdrawn their resignations.

In case of sidelining Hanif Awan from NA-107 and now from PP-114, the PML-N may face a possible wrath of the local party ranks for ignoring diehard workers.

Talking to Dawn, Chaudhry Arshad confirmed that the chances of his getting the PML-N ticket were there as the party had been offering him ticket for the last two years.

However, he said so far he had not made up his mind whether to contest from the platform of the PML-Q or the PML-N.

According to him, a party ticket did not matter to him and his supporters.

Replying to another question regarding PPP leader Wattoo’s reported offer of a PPP ticket to him due to his family’s close association with him (Wattoo), he said Mr Wattoo had never made such an offer to him.