September 13, 2008	Saturday	Ramazan 12, 1429

LAHORE, Sept 12: In what appears a change of strategy, the PPP will remain in alliance with the PML-N in Punjab for the ‘time being’, but will take the PML-Q along at the central level.

The PPP ministers in the Punjab cabinet, who have been allowed by the party leadership to rejoin their offices, have been strictly barred from issuing any statement against Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

The ‘on-off-alliance’ with the PML-N will continue till the PPP has gathered the numbers required to deprive the chief minister of majority’s support.

On the other hand, Prime Minister’s Adviser Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo met PML-Q leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and Hamid Nasir Chattha here on Friday and exchanged views with them on the situation after the PML-N ministers pulled out of the federal cabinet and the PML-N’s efforts to stay in power in Punjab with the support of the PML-Q forward bloc members.

According to a source, the PML-Q leaders said the PPP should ‘return’ the former ruling party’s dissident members that it had enticed with it before talking of mutual cooperation. Similarly, the PPP should stop causing more defections from the PML-Q.

At present, some two dozen PML-Q MNAs and more than a dozen MPAs are cooperating with the PPP, although the two parties are yet to join hands formally. (More than two dozen PML-Q MPAs are supporting the PML-N government in Punjab).

A meeting of the PML-Q office-bearers is expected to be held some time next week (possibly on Tuesday or Wednesday) to take a formal decision about joining hands with the PPP.

The PPP defends its efforts to take the PML-Q along in the federal setup. It has been estimated that with both these parties on the same platform and the ANP, JUI-F, MQM, FATA also on board, the restructured coalition would have a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly as well as the Senate. As a result, it would be possible for the ruling coalition to make any amendment to the Constitution.

It is said that the PPP leadership wants to remove all distortions and patch work from the 1973 Constitution, an objective that cannot be achieved unless the party has two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament.

SHAHBAZ: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that policies of the former government ruined all institutions and generated a number of problems. However, he said, it was his firm belief that nothing was impossible and all hurdles in uplift of the province would be removed with collective efforts.

At the first meeting of the advisory council, which reviewed different development schemes at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat here on Friday, the chief minister said health, education and the law and order situation were the barometer to judge the performance of any government and improvement in these sectors was priority of the present leadership.