QUETTA, June 2: The PML parliamentary party group comprising ministers and MPAs has denied that it is conspiring to bring about an in-house change in the province. After a meeting held at the residence of Mir Abdul Rehman Jamali, Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs, here on Thursday evening, the provincial general secretary of Pakistan Muslim League (PML), Balochistan, Shiekh Jaffar Khan Mandokhel, said that a wrong message had been conveyed to Islamabad by certain quarters about their struggle.

He said that the PML parliamentary party group was making all efforts for restoring the status of the PML as a senior partner in the coalition government of Balochistan. He said that the group never talked about removing the parliamentary leader of the party in Balochistan.

“It is just propaganda that PML ministers and MPAs were planning to remove Jam Mohammad Yousuf from the chief ministership,” he said, and added that through such propaganda the party’s opponents wanted to create a misunderstanding within the ranks of the party. He said that the party would foil all such conspiracies.

Mr Mandokhel said that the group had launched a struggle against the discriminative attitude of the coalition partner MMA who badly ignored PML members and even ministers in allocation of development funds and inducting their development schemes in the annual development programme.

Mir Jan Mohammad Jamali, a former chief minister, said that Deputy Speaker Aslam Bhootani, Finance Minister Syed Ehsan Shah, Home Minister Mir Shoaib Nausherwani, Asghar Rind and Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo came to his house to discuss the situation. He said that he told them that the struggle was not for replacing Chief Minister Jam Yousuf and through this struggle they wanted to make the chief minister stronger so that he could protect the rights of PML ministers and MPAs.

Vice President of PML Women’s Wing Dr Ruqayia Hashmi said that the elements which were creating misunderstandings within the party through issuing such statements had always received personal benefits from the party.

She said that Chief Minister Jam Yousuf should take all the members into confidence for running his government smoothly.