September 23, 2008	Tuesday	Ramazan 22, 1429

LAHORE, Sept 22: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have agreed to “redefine the terms of engagement” in Punjab as the latter is not prepared to quit the provincial coalition in spite of its senior partner’s unwillingness to accommodate it in the government any longer.

“A four-member committee has been constituted to reconsider the terms of engagement in the province in view of the split between the two parties at the Centre,” provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah told Dawn on Monday.

The committee comprising PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah and Sirdar Zulfikar Ali Khosa and PPP’s Raja Riaz Ahmed and Tanvir Ashraf Kaira will hold its maiden meeting on Tuesday (today). The committee was formed after a meeting between PPP’s senior minister Raja Riaz and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif earlier in the day.

“I called on the CM to convey the message of President Asif Zardari to him,” Raja Riaz told media after his first meeting with Shahbaz weeks after the split between the two parties at the Centre.

Mr Zardari is said to have expressed his wish that the two parties should continue their alliance in the province and work together for the wellbeing of its citizens.

“There will be no change (of government) in Punjab. All misgivings (between the two coalition partners) have been removed. We will also consider expansion in the provincial cabinet in a couple of days,” he said. Both the parties had decided to hold fire and work together as in the past, he said.

The PML-N has been urging the PPP to quit the provincial government ever since it decided to sit on opposition benches after a split between the two parties on Zardari’s refusal to restore the pre-Nov 3 judiciary despite his commitment and his decision to become the president without repealing the 17th Amendment.

But the PPP has refused to oblige the PML-N. PPP leaders have been saying repeatedly that the provincial government (of the PML-N) would fall if it withdrew its ministers from the cabinet.

Rana Sana said the committee would mull over the issues that could crop up if the two parties carried on their alliance in Punjab while, at the same time, opposing each other in the Centre. “We have offered them to make their man the leader of the opposition in the provincial assembly and give chairmanship of the provincial Public Accounts Committee on the lines of our relationship at the centre. But they are insisting on cling to the government,” he said.

He said it could take a few meetings before the two parties could reach a consensus and rewrite the rules and terms of engagement in the province. “We don’t know how it would be possible for them to go by the rules if and when we criticise or oppose their policies in the National Assembly. The committee would look at these matters and decide a code of ethics and frame its proposals for approval by the leadership of the PPP and the PML-N,” he said. He said the PML-N did not want to forcibly expel the PPP from the coalition in order to avoid re-enactment of the politics of bitter confrontation of 1990s.—Nasir Jamal