June 29, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 13, 1428

LAHORE, June 28: Another Pakistan Muslim League (PML) member of the Punjab Assembly, Dr Tasnim Rasheed, resigned from her party on Thursday to join the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

The resignation of Dr Rasheed, who hails from Jaranwala, came just a couple of days after two ruling party MPAs from Vehari and Mandi Bahauddin had announced joining the PPP and only hours after Punjab PML secretary-general Chaudhry Zaheeruddin had claimed that no other treasury member would quit the party.

Dr Rasheed was elected on one of the special seats reserved for women.

The provincial PPP leaders termed the defection of Dr Rasheed another blow to the ruling party, but her defection is not being taken “very seriously” by the political circles.

“Dr Rasheed’s defection to the PPP is not going to make a big dent to the governing PML as some of our party leaders would like to see, but it will definitely prove to be a moral booster for our workers,” a PPP leader, who did not want to be identified, acknowledged.

The provincial PPP leadership, nevertheless, appears quite upbeat on the recent defections of the sitting PML members of the provincial assembly, insisting that the fissures within the PML are widening ahead of general election.

Punjab PPP president Shah Mahmood Qureshi announced Dr Rasheed’s resignation from PML at a press conference here.

The MPA did not show up at the conference as she was away from the country. She was represented by her husband, who claimed to have her written resignation on him.

Qureshi also announced that a number of ruling PML leaders from Jaranwala, Okara and Faisalabad had joined the PPP.

Punjab PML secretary-general Chaudhry Zaheeruddin has already stated his party has no plans to file disqualification references against its legislators who have defected to the PPP. “We will hold them (defectors) accountable for their betrayal by having them defeated in the next elections,” he told Dawn on Wednesday.

Qureshi said more PML legislators would join his party in the coming days. He said the defections were a “reflection on the leadership of the ruling Muslim League. The ruling party leadership has miserably failed to keep its legislators and other leaders happy”.

He said those PPP legislators, who had defected to the ruling party in the past four-and-a-half years, would not be taken back in the party. “If any one of them approaches us for this purpose, our response will be: No, thank you,” he said.