GUJRAT: Senior leaders of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) are in touch over possible seat adjustment and electoral cooperation between the two parties in the coming general elections.

“Since both the parties have been cooperating with each other against the PML-N in by-polls in Punjab as well as recent Senate elections, chances of future electoral alliance or seat adjustment with the PTI are very bright,” says senior PML-Q leader Chaudhry Moonis Elahi.

Talking to Dawn, Moonis who is PML-Q’s parliamentary leader in the Punjab Assembly, said his party was in contact with PTI Chairman Imran Khan, Jahangir Tareen, Aleem Khan and others and it was almost decided that both the parties would cooperate through seat adjustment, mainly in Punjab.

He said his party would be interested in getting PTI’s support through seat adjustment in those constituencies of national and provincial assemblies where PML-Q candidates had either won or stood runners up in the last general elections.

Moonis said the parties were yet to decide modalities of seat adjustment and also had to do the homework on identification of such constituencies that could be won through such electoral cooperation.

He believed since a united opposition had achieved success in recent Senate elections, it could pave the way for further unity for which the PML-Q was ready to play a role to bring the PTI and the PPP together.

Reliable sources in PTI confirmed reports that the party had already conveyed to its ticket aspirants in Gujrat, about the possibilities of seat adjustment.

PTI ticket aspirants who may be affected by the adjustment are opposing the idea.

For instance, Afzal Gondal, former PTI ticket holder against Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi in NA-105 (now NA-69), had asked party chief Imran Khan during latter’s recent visit to Gujrat to refrain from seat adjustment with the PML-Q.

Zubair Tanda, a PTI ticket aspirant from PP-28, said the Punjab leadership had already told him about the possibility of seat adjustment with the PML-Q according to which NA-68 would be given to the ‘Q’ and he (Tanda) would be a joint candidate for PP-28 which was acceptable to him.

Similarly, the Kharian and Sara-i-Alamgir chapters of the PTI also do not have any reservation on seat adjustment since the union council chairmen of the PTI had voted to PML-Q’s Begum Sameera Elahi, the sister of Chaudhry Shujaat, who was the joint candidate of both parties for the slot of Gujrat district council chairman in December 2016 and the ‘Q’ may support PTI candidates from aforementioned two tehsils of Gujrat district.

As per sources in both the parties, the PTI may support the PML-Q on both NA seats (68 and 69) of Gujrat tehsil by not pitching its candidates against Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and Chaudhry Wajahat Husain as well as in PP-30 of Moonis Elahi and one PA seat each can be given to PTI candidates falling under both these NA seats.

Same kind of cooperation can be reached between both the parties in Mandi Bahauddin, Chakwal, Attock, Rawalpindi, Kasur, Bahawalpur, Sargodha, Rahim Yar Khan and other districts of Punjab.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2018