GUJRAT: A grand national alliance of various parties is on the cards prior to the general elections while unification of all the PML factions except the PML-N is also likely for which the leaders of different are in touch.

Talking to Dawn, PML-Q parliamentary leader in the Punjab Assembly Chaudhry Moonis Elahi dispelled reports that Nawaz Sharif had contacted Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Pervaiz Elahi recently for a meeting.

“This is not an appropriate time to indulge in such contacts with the PML-N leadership whose ship is about to sink,” Moonis said.

According to him, the recent defections by the PML-Q’s incumbent and former lawmakers to the PTI may not harm the former’s position in Punjab as they had joined the PTI more than a year ago but could not announce it to avoid possible implications of defection claus. “A number of the electables from across the province are in contact with the PML-Q leadership for joining the party,” he claimed.

“Some influential political figures, including a PTI MPA and some former lawmakers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) have recently joined the PML-Q and more people will join the party in the coming days from that province,” Moonis said and expected defections from PML-N when the party was not in power.

When asked why the lawmakers from the KP had joined the PML-Q in recent days, he said its leadership had always given autonomy to the provincial chapters of party in their provinces keeping in view the local situation like it did in Balochistan where PML-Q lawmakers had been the part of coalition government after 2013 general elections and similar kind of arrangement could be made in the KP in future.

“A number of good candidates who would always prefer a PML platform for their politics keeping in view of their party-based voters in the respective constituencies do not consider the PML N as a favorite platform in the next general elections. Thus there is a chance for the PML-Q as an alternate platform for them and they are in contact with the party.”

Moonis thinks Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi had served as best chief minister in Punjab during his five years stint introducing a lot of innovative ideas and policies of public welfare without any discrimination unlike the Shahbaz government’s policy of ignoring the far-flung areas.

Published in Dawn, Aprill 10th, 2018