ISLAMABAD, Dec 14: The parliamentary leader of Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam), Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, has summoned the party top brass to Lahore on Sunday for consultations on the situation arising out of PML-Q President Mian Azhar’s meeting with President Gen Pervez Musharraf here on Friday.

The leadership in the party’s central secretariat completed the constitution of 10 committees for the organization of the Dec 20 general council meeting.

A meeting, presided over by the party’s acting president, Majeed Malik, decided to invite nomination papers for the election of secretary-general by Dec 17.

The senior vice-president of the PML-Q, Majeed Malik, who is acting in place of Mian Azhar after clipping of his presidential powers, and acting secretary-general, Salim Saifullah Khan, will reach Lahore to join the consultations, sources said.

Salim Saifullah told Dawn on Saturday that Mian Azhar’s meeting with President Musharraf might also come under discussion in Lahore.

He claimed that Mian Munir, Tariq Aziz and Ghulam Sarwar Cheema, who were supporters of Mian Azhar, had assured the acting president and himself of their support in the council meeting.

PML (Zia) President Ijazul Haq met Salim Saifullah and discussed creation of a working relationship between the factions.

Manzoor Wattoo of the PML (Jinnah) met him and discussed possibilities of reunification of all the PML factions.

Mian Azhar failed to get an assurance during the one-to-one meeting with the president that he would not be removed unceremoniously from the party leadership, sources told Dawn.

He left for Lahore immediately after the meeting and cancelled a scheduled press briefing.

The president’s spokesman, Rashid Qureshi, did the rest by saying the meeting had been held on the request of Mr Azhar and not on an invitation from President’s House.

A dejected Mian Azhar said after the meeting: “I have informed the president about the illegal methods which some powerful party leaders have adopted to boot me out.”

“Let me reach Lahore and discuss the matter with my colleagues before taking a decision whether we should convene the general council or not,” he said when asked if he would convene a meeting before the one called by the acting president here on Dec 20.

Sources said Mian Azhar had tried to convince the president that the step of appointment of the acting secretary-general without his consent and the manner in which signatures of general council members had been taken were unconstitutional and they should be reversed.

The president, sources claimed, remained non-committal on all accounts and told the PML-Q leader that his spokesman would give his reaction to the press.

However, sources claimed that the president had conveyed his desire, through his emissaries, to the PML-Q leadership that it should resolve the issue without creating division in the party. With this objective in mind, Chaudhry Shujaat, who had just arrived in Lahore from a Karachi, had summoned his confidants for consultations, they said.