PMML Spokesman tells Maryam Nawaz, Azma Bokhari and Rana Sanaullah to check the official register before speaking.
LAHORE: The Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML) has seized on the Election Commission’s latest list of registered political parties, where it appears at number 114, as official proof that it is a lawful party, and challenged senior PML-N leaders to stop describing it as a front for banned groups.
The updated ECP list names Khalid Masood Sindhu as the party’s president and records its registered office address, the PMML said.
Party spokesman Faisal Nadeem urged Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, Information Minister Azma Bokhari and Rana Sanaullah, the prime minister’s adviser on political affairs, to take note of the list. Public office-holders, he said, should verify facts before making statements so the public is not misled.
The list is the party’s answer to the narrative that followed the NA-77 Gujranwala by-election. After the Nov 8 vote, the chief minister wrote that banned organisations had contested against her party under a new name, and Bokhari asked how proscribed groups could rebrand and enter politics. Sindhu has since demanded an apology from the chief minister.
The chief minister has framed the by-election as an endorsement. In a statement on Nov 9 she thanked voters in Gujranwala and Chichawatni, saying the victories of PML-N candidates in NA-77 and PP-203 showed public trust in the party’s politics of service.
Nadeem said voters had backed the PMML after seeing its welfare work and political conduct, and repeated the party’s allegation that the ruling party’s win came through manipulation rather than a genuine mandate. The PML-N rejects that claim, and the provisional count gave its candidate a margin of 13,147 votes. The PMML’s complaint is now before the Election Commission, which has sought a report from the returning officer.
“The party will not retreat from its position,” Nadeem said, adding that it would keep pressing for what it considers its rightful mandate.
Enlistment with the ECP allows a party to contest elections on a common symbol, as the PMML did across the country in 2024 on the chair. It is the state’s formal recognition of a party’s legal status in electoral politics.
The party’s critics point instead to its history. It is widely described as linked to the founders of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and its predecessor, the Milli Muslim League, was refused registration by the ECP. The PMML denies any link to a proscribed organisation and says its record of welfare work, including flood relief and rescue services, speaks for itself.
Nadeem said the party remained committed to patriotism, the ideology of Pakistan and the protection of national interests. With Punjab’s local government elections set for Feb 7, the argument over the party’s standing is likely to resurface in every ward it contests.
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