ISLAMABAD, July 1: The meeting of heads of four Pakistan Muslim League factions with President Gen Pervez Musharraf, scheduled for Tuesday, has abruptly been cancelled, it was officially learnt on Monday.

The officials at the chief executive secretariat informed the league leaders that “the meeting has been cancelled”, a league source said, without assigning any reason for this cancellation.

The meeting had taken on added significance in the light of recent political developments, including Tahirul Qadri’s decision to part company with pro-Musharraf National Alliance.

It was aimed at providing the four league faction leaders a roadmap for their merger by endeavouring to end their differences, the sources claimed.

Under the proposed plan, the president was to receive Pir Pagara, head of PML (functional), Mian Mohammad Azhar, president PML (QA), Chaudhry Hamid Naser Chattha, president PML (Junejo) and a representative of PML (Jinnah) of jailed Manzoor Wattoo, Saeed Minhais, at 10am on Tuesday.

Although officials were noncommittal about what led to the meeting’s cancellation, the political analysts linked it with Pir Pagaro’s statement from Lahore in which he spoke of the Musharraf government’s imminent downfall.

Pagaro also said in his statement that a government, certainly led by a male, would come in to replace Musharraf but would only last one year and a half.