QUETTA, June 18: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has assured that the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) would be given its due status and all problems being faced by the ministers and MPAs of the party in Balochistan would be resolved on a priority basis.

He was speaking to an angry group of PML ministers and MPAs from Balochistan at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat on Saturday. PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Secretary General Senator Mushahid Hussain were also present on the occasion.

Federal Ministers Mrs Zubaida Jalal, Sardar Yar Mohammad Rind, Mir Naseer Mengal, Senator Wali Mohammad and Senator Ayaz Khan Mandokhel also attended the meeting.

Sources said that in the meeting, which continued for three hours, several issues — including the provincial budget, Public Sector Development Programme, administrative affairs and the forthcoming local bodies’ election — were discussed.

The provincial general secretary of PML, Balochistan, Shiekh Jaffar Khan Mandokhel, apprised the meeting about the stand of the group regarding the provincial government, especially the attitude of the MMA with a senior PML coalition partner in the province.

“All the members of the group presented their point of view in detail in the meeting,” Mir Jan Mohammad Khan Jamali told Dawn over the telephone from Islamabad, and added that the response of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Chaudhry Shujaat was positive and they listened attentively to the complaints of the group.

He said that the group also clarified that they were not against Chief Minister Jam Yousuf and their struggle was for restoring the due status of PML as a senior partner in the coalition government and to protect the rights of PML ministers and MPAs in distribution of development funds.

He informed the meeting that the federal government had allocated huge funds for the speedy development of the province.

Mr Shujaat, while speaking to the group of PML ministers and MPAs, said that all steps would be taken for the betterment of the Pakistan Muslim League. He asked the PML group to work efficiently for making the party stronger in the province.

The sources said that it was decided in the meeting that PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Secretary General Senator Mushahid Hussain would visit Quetta in the last week of June to resolve all issues raised by PML ministers and MPAs during the meeting.

The members of PML parliamentary group who attended the meeting included provincial ministers Mir Abdul Rehman Jamali, Syed Sher Jan Baloch, Col (retd) Younus Changezi, Mir Bakhtiar Khan Domki and Sardar Masood Ahmed Luni.