Crucial PML-Q meeting to be held today
LAHORE: The Chaudhrys of Gujrat are meeting the ‘bigwigs’ of the party on Monday (today) to woo them for the possible PML-Q-PPP alliance to form a new government in Punjab.
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Pervaiz Ealhi have invited Saleem Saifullah, Khurshid Kasuri, Hamid Nasir Chatta, Farooq Ahmed Leghari, Ijazul Haq, Muhammad Ali Durrani, Faisal Saleh Hayat and Gohar Ayub at their Zahoor Ealhi residence in Gulberg to take them into confidence over the options of alliance with the PPP.
Sources informed Dawn on Sunday that these leaders wanted to either form an alliance with the PML-N or to maintain their identity. After committing support to the PPP leadership to help form government in Punjab, the Chaudhrys are now facing opposition within their party ranks for the proposition under the present circumstances.
‘It will be very difficult for the Chaudhrys to back out as the script of the governor’s rule was finalized in consultation with them,’ the sources further informed.
While Shujaat Hussain says the PML-Q has yet to decide which way to go, party insiders claim the Chaudhrys are caught up in a difficult situation and will have to weigh other options. It is believed that joining hands with the PPP may further damage the PML-Q because it had earlier carried the tag of a dictator’s pet party and it may have to bear the same for its alliance with President Zardari.
A PML-Q central leader said the party president must not take a decision of forging alliance with the PPP ‘unilaterally’ as it would eventually result in ‘wiping out’ the party in the next general elections. He also said that since Nawaz Sharif was not willing to ‘forgive’ some of the PML-Q leaders, the party is better off in the opposition.
On the other hand, a PPP leader told Dawn that if the PML-Q leadership backed out of its commitment his party would not deprive the PML-N of its right to form its government in Punjab. He is however optimistic that in a span of one month the PPP will manage to carve out a ‘unification bloc’ of the PML-N with no less than 60 MPAs. ‘If the PML-N can do this with the PML-Q others too have the right.”’
Though the PPP, he says, is pressing the Chaudhrys to get ‘the angry’ people back in fold but if they fail to do so even then it will not be a matter of concern for PPP, provided it succeeds in mustering the support of a large number of PML-N dissidents.
When asked for possible decision of the meeting, a Q-leaguer said, ‘No one can go against the party workers aspirations which definitely were on the PML-N’s side.’
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