12 July 2004	Monday	23 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

LAHORE, July 11: Frustrated over PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif's failure to return home, a group of woman MPAs sees no future for the party and is trying to follow in Ahad Malik's footsteps.

Soon after Mr Sharif was deported immediately as he landed at Lahore airport on May 11, PML-N MPA from Lahore Ahad Malik offered his support in Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi and joined treasury benches in the Punjab Assembly.

Sources privy to the development say that the group of woman MPAs, being led by Saba Sadiq, is, however, seeking a "small" favour from the government for changing loyalties.

The sources say that Mrs Sadiq had offered the chief minister in early June that she could bring four more MPAs in the fold of the ruling coalition if she was made parliamentary secretary.

The CM directed his confidant, who ensures smooth sailing for treasury in the house, law minister Raja Muhammad Basharat, to look into the offer. The Raja visited Mrs Sadiq as a guest at a dinner about which PML-N elders were kept in the dark. To show her "strength", Saba Sadiq along with three other woman MPAs visited the Raja in his office.

The team comprised Nighat Mir, Khalida Mansoor, and another MPA whose name could not be known till the filing of this report. Soon their activities were noticed by the PML-N leaders, who lodged a strong protest with the government and warned it that smooth functioning of the house would become impossible if it did not end wooing its woman members. The government denied that it were wooing the MPAs, telling the PML-N elders that the group itself had expressed its desire to join the treasury.

However, the process of changing loyalty by the group came to a halt, only for the time being, when the PML-N launched some personal attacks on the ruling coalition leaders during the recent budget session. Since then Mrs Sadiq has not visited the deputy opposition leader's chambers in the Punjab Assembly.