LAHORE: The Pakistan Democratic Movement-led coalition government has accelerated efforts to thwart the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s plan to dissolve the assemblies in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chairing a meeting of the PML-N leadership at his Model Town residence in Lahore on Monday.
Sources privy to what transpired in the meeting said that the political situation in the province dominated the agenda, with the party focusing on its strategy to foil Imran Khan’s plan on December 23.
[Explanation: If the KP and Punjab assemblies are dissolved, the federal government will have to call for fresh elections within 90 days. This rule would have to be followed as it is clearly laid out in the constitution.]
Federal and provincial ministers of the PML-N including Khawaja Saad Rafiq, Ayaz Sadiq, Khawaja Salman Rafiq, Malik Ahmad Khan and Attaullah Tarar attended the meeting.
Sources said that the vote of no-confidence against Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi was discussed along with possibility of the governor asking the chief minister to take the vote of confidence.
The meeting comes on the back of a frenzied Sunday that saw PM Shehbaz Sharif visiting Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the party president of the PML-Q, to consider the possibility of supporting the PML-N against the PTI. Shujaat’s cousin Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, who is the Punjab chief minister, has thrown his party’s weight behind the PTI.
Elahi has repeatedly said that he would dissolve the Punjab Assembly as soon as he gets the go-ahead from Imran Khan. However, on Sunday he issued a stern warning to Imran about speaking against their ‘benefactor’ General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the recently-retired chief of army staff.
The other key personality on Pakistan’s political landscape, Asif Ali Zardari, also visited Lahore on Sunday, first meeting with Shehbaz and then with Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.
Sources within the PML-N say that Zardari and Shehbaz discussed the latter’s meeting with Shujaat. Zardari then left to meet Shujaat, with another option for Pervaiz Elahi. The solution, sources say, would require Elahi to resign as chief minister which would make the summary he handed over to Imran Khan regarding the dissolution of assemblies ‘ineffective and infructuous’.
In this outcome, the assembly would not be dissolved till a new chief minister takes charge.
