LAHORE, Oct 24: The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) chairman, Makhdoom Amin Fahim said here on Thursday that since his party has got highest votes, it had the first right to form government.

He demanded that a session of the National Assembly be convened immediately and in case his party failed to show its majority, it would be willing to sit on opposition benches.

The PPP leader was talking to reporters after a two-hour meeting with ARD President, Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, who was not in favour of a coalition of parties which had divergent views on the status of constitutional amendments and the presidency of Gen Musharraf.

The Fahim said he would continue to make efforts for the formation of a “government of national unity” in which all major parties elected to the assembly had representation. If such a government could not be formed in cooperation with the PML(Q), the PPP would have no reservations about joining hands with the MMA and the PML(N).

“We are not rejecting any party,” he said, implying that he was not proposing to exclude any party from the proposed setup.

He said while he himself would contact more parties in the days to come, he had also requested the Nawabzada to explore new possibilities.

He described his talks with the PML(Q) as exploratory in nature and hoped that the state of political alignments in the new assembly would crystallize in a few days.

The Nawabzada, who had rejected the idea being violative of the ARD’s charter, on Thursday looked quite satisfied over the explanation of contacts offered by the PPP leader with its main adversary. He was also happy when the Makhdoom renewed his party’s pledge to continue working for the objectives the ARD had set for itself at the time of its inception.

“We’ll keep the doors open for talks with all democratic forces,” Makhdoom said when a reporter asked if it would be right to conclude that now the PPP would not hold any further talks with the PML(Q).