September 11, 2008	Thursday	Ramazan 10, 1429

LAHORE, Sept 10: Punjab Governor Salman Taseer met PML-Q leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi on Wednesday and discussed the possibility of forming a PPP-led coalition government in Punjab.

And, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif met members of the PML-Q ‘forward bloc’ and discussed ways of thwarting any PPP move to destabilise his government.

The PPP ministers, who are being asked by the PML-N to quit the Punjab cabinet or face de-notification, are awaiting instructions from their leadership.

While they have not been attending their offices for several days, they appear to be in no mood to resign unless asked by the party command to do so. According to sources, the Punjab governor and the PML-Q leaders agreed that the two parties should cooperate “in larger national interest”.

It is said that leaders of the two parties are also in contact with the ‘forward bloc’ and are hoping that most of them would support their move to form a new government in the province.

“They are confident that they will have the required number of legislators to form a government,” said a PPP leader who attended the meeting.

The development belied recent media reports that President Asif Zardari had asked Mr Taseer not to issue statements against the PML-N government or leadership.

The PPP leader told Dawn that possibility of the “emergence a forward bloc in the PML-N” could not be ruled out.

He said the PPP would demonstrate its capability “only at an appropriate time”.

He rejected suggestions that the Punjab chief minister would de-notify the PPP ministers if they did not quit.

“After having seen the PPP’s massive support at the Aiwan-i-Sadr at the time of President Zardari’s swearing-in on Tuesday, the chief minister will not dare take any action against PPP ministers,” he said.

Meanwhile, it was learnt that leaders of the PML-Q’s ‘forward bloc’ had advised the chief minister to concentrate on strengthening ‘people opposed to the Chaudhrys of Gujrat”.

They believed that if the chief minister had a simple majority nobody “will be able to create any problem”. The possibility of members of the ‘forward bloc’ to contesting on PML-N tickets in fresh elections was also discussed.