LAHORE, Sept 20: Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi says the ruling PML will award tickets to all its sitting legislators interested in contesting the upcoming elections.

“We’ll try to accommodate all those (legislators) who are with us”, he said while talking to this correspondent.

Pervaiz Elahi, who is also party’s provincial president, said the legislators who had recently left the party knew that they would not be given tickets for the forthcoming polls. He claimed that there was no other reason behind their decision to quit the PML.

A number of ruling party parliamentarians joined the opposition ranks after President Musharraf’s meeting with PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto and the Supreme Court ruling that Nawaz Sharif was free to return to Pakistan and stay here.

Both developments shook the ruling party and many of its legislators started looking for options to save their political future.

However, the deportation of Mr Sharif to Saudi Arabia on Sept 10 and lack of progress in talks with the PPP halted defections for the time being.

Mr Elahi said he was confident that his party would win the elections on account of its five-year performance.

He ruled out the possibility of the unification of various factions of the Pakistan Muslim League.

“Nawaz Sharif and company has no vision, no outlook, no foresight, and in the absence of these three things no talks are possible with them”.

The chief minister said all important leaders were already with the ruling PML and those who were not, would also join it soon.

Former Prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who is no longer with the ruling party, floated the idea of unification of the PML factions. He has been holding meetings with leaders like Pir Pagara, but has got no positive response from the ruling party.

The chief minister did not give much importance to reports that some top ruling party leaders had sold their industrial units and transferred the capital abroad.

He said it was strange that people criticized these leaders when they set up industries in the country and they were again criticizing them when they had decided to switch business.

The chief minister said the entire criticism was baseless.