LAHORE, Jan 11: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chairman Imran Khan called on Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif at the latter’s residence here on Sunday to discuss possibilities of a new political alliance as well as a joint strategy for the lawyers’ proposed long march.

The new alliance, if formed, will be based on one-point agenda of reinstatement of the higher courts’ judges dismissed by former army dictator Pervez Musharraf through his notorious Nov 3, 2007, ‘emergency plus’.

“I’ve discussed with Mr Sharif the issue of formation of a new political alliance comprising all opposition parties,” Mr Khan told the media after about three-hour-long meeting.

A strategy for ensuring a maximum participation in the long march to Islamabad, the legal community has planned for March 9, also came under discussion, he said.

Both sides also agreed to convene a national conference on the issue as venue and time of the event would be finalised soon, he added.

He said the PML-N leader also assured him that 18th amendment bill would be tabled in the next session of the National Assembly for striking a balance between the powers of the president and the prime minister by repealing 17th constitutional amendment.

The PTI leader hoped that at least one million marchers would gather on the Constitutional Avenue on March 9 for the restoration of the deposed judges.

He said the movement for independent judiciary was not confined to the lawyers’ community alone, rather it was an expression of sentiments of the whole nation.

He said the current political dispensation was nothing but merely a change of faces as it failed to come up to the expectations of the masses.