ISLAMABAD: Before President Asif Ali Zardari retreated on the standoff over the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), some senior leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had suggested to him to drop the bill and face cases against himself.

However, President Zardari ignored the advice and decided to table the bill in parliament because he was confident that the NRO would be approved, sources in the PPP said on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court had given the government 120 days for approval of 37 ordinances given protection by former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf under the emergency imposed on Nov 3, 2007. The deadline is Nov 28.

President Zardari has now decided that the NRO will not be presented in parliament and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that its fate will be decided by courts.

The sources said that while some PPP leaders like Raza Rabbani and Dr Israr Shah had openly advised the president to give up the idea of sending the NRO to parliament, several others had expressed a similar opinion in meetings behind closed doors.

Dr Israr had also sent a letter to President Zardari on Oct 20, urging him to abolish the NRO.

‘The honourable co-chairman of the PPP, being the president of Pakistan, should himself abolish the NRO to avoid embarrassment for the party in parliament and the political sphere and he is requested to withdraw the bill from parliament,’ the letter said.

‘That the co-chairman will be highly respected in the masses and the graph of the party will rise in the public if the president himself presents his cases before the judiciary,’ it said.

Dr Israr was of the view that abolition of the NRO would defuse the political heat stirred by the government’s opponents.

‘You have faced concocted cases for the past nine years with bravery and nothing has been proved against you. ‘I am sure that you will be gracefully exonerated,’ he said.

He said acceptance of the NRO was a strategic political move of the late Benazir Bhutto for revival of democracy.

Meanwhile, President Zardari held a meeting with his close aides and party MNAs from Sindh on Tuesday. Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah also attended the meeting.

Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the meeting expressed confidence in the leadership of President Zardari as PPP’s co-chairman.