Nawaz Sharif has instructed Ishaq Dar to stick to the demand of elections in the whole country simultaneously and reject the demand for assemblies to be dissolved immediately.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Ishaq Dar consulted Nawaz who is still in London. Reports said Nawaz told the meeting that Imran Khan is ‘not to be trusted’ as he is changing his stance on elections regularly.

He told the meeting that PTI’s demand for dissolution of assemblies in the center as well as Sindh and Balochistan was impractical as it could not be done without the consent of the parties ruling those two provinces.

He told Dar, who is part of government team engaging in the talks, that he should stick to the original position that elections in Punjab cannot be held on May 14 and must be held across the country at once.

PTI hints at protests

On the otherhand, Fawad Chaudhry, who is part of team representing PTI in the negotiations, said that they want the talks to succeed but have alternatives if the talks fail.

“The masses should prepare for a big movement, in case the talks fail,” Fawad wrote on Twitter.

He also said that the rallies announced by PTI will lead towards a ‘historic’ long march.

PTI is set to take out rallies in three different cities on Labour Day. The main rally in Lahore will be led by Imran Khan himself, while Shah Mahmood Qureshi will lead a rally in Islamabad and Pervez Khattak will leade a rally in Peshawar.

Whats next in the talks?

Talks between the two teams will resume on Tuesday at 11pm in the parliament’s committee room. The next session will be the third, and optimisim had been expressed by both sides on Friday that an agreement was ‘close’.

The PTI delegation which includes Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Fawad Chaudhry and Ali Zafar has asked for assemblies to be dissolved immediately if the government wants simultaneous elections across the country. They have also offered the government to agree upon a dissolution date, present the budget and then dissolve the assembly.

The government team, which includes Yousaf Raza Gillani, Saad Rafique, Naveed Qamar, Azam Tarrar and Kishwar Zehra has ruled out immediate dissolution and said that it wants to present the budget. Sources have claimed that a compromise could be made on elections in August.