May 29, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 12, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 28: The Policy Planning Group (PPG) of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League is holding its first meeting at the prime minister’s house on Tuesday. The group was constituted during the recent two-day meeting of the party’s Central Executive Committee on a proposal of party president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

The meeting, to be chaired by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, will be attended by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, more than two dozen senior vice-presidents and the four provincial presidents. Party’s Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Syed, who is also a member, is abroad.

No agenda is reported to have been set for the first PPG meeting.

Reliable party sources said that the group’s main job would be to engage senior party leaders in discussions on various issues, including the coming elections, to convey a message that all policies were being planned by the party.

The sources said that the meeting on Tuesday would discuss, among other things, the overall political situation with reference to Saturday’s address by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to the Supreme Court Bar. The group is also expected to discuss next year’s budget.

However, the PPG is not expected to take up the judicial crisis which was discussed in detail in the party’s Central Executive Committee meeting with some senior members like S. M. Zafar, Hameeda Khoro, Syed Kabir Ali Wasti, Gen Majeed Malik and Justice (retd) Azam Khan calling for early resolution of the crisis to stop the opposition’s onslaught.

Similarly, the group is not expected to discuss the Central Executive Committee’s anxiety over MQM’s involvement in the May 12 Karachi killings on which some senior executive members had asked the government to undertake a comprehensive inquiry to fix responsibility.