November 01, 2008	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 2, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: In an apparent defiance of an agreement with senior party leaders, PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain is reported to have held a meeting with former president Pervez Musharraf here on Friday.

The meeting, according to sources, came against the background of a discussion held on Thursday by a group of senior leaders of the PML-Q headed by Hamid Nasir Chattha on the issue of party leadership with Chaudhry Shujaat and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

Sources said a proposal to change the party leadership before the completion of the incumbent leaders’ tenure was discussed.

The PML-Q leaders, the sources said, had agreed not to disclose details of the discussion to the media, not to involve Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf in the party’s affairs, and to make efforts for ending differences in the party.

The sources said that the meeting with the former president was held on the initiative of the Chaudhrys. According to them, Chaudhry Shujaat and Chaudhry Parvaiz also met Gohar Ayub Khan.

The sources said that Salim Saifullah had contacted ‘like-minded’ party leaders and persuaded them to meet Chaudhry Shujaat and try to resolve the leadership issue.

PML-Q information secretary Senator Tariq Azeem told Dawn he had been informed that the meeting with the former president was purely a ‘social’ call in which political issues were not discussed.