ISLAMABAD: A day after the opposition parties announced launching their anti-government campaign with the holding of its first public meeting from the platform of the newly formed Pakistan Demo­cratic Movement in Quetta on Oct 11, chief of his own faction of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) Sardar Akhtar Mengal met Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari at the latter’s residence in Dubai on Wednesday.

According to a brief statement issued by the PPP Media Office here, both the leaders discussed “overall political situation of the country and cooperation among the political parties for strengthening democracy and supremacy of the Constitution”.

The PPP chairman’s spokesman Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar told Dawn that the two leaders discussed future strategy for running the anti-government campaign in line with the decisions taken at the Sept 20 multiparty conference (MPC) of the opposition parties.

Besides, Mr Khokhar said, UAE Minister for Culture, Youth and Social Development Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan also called on the PPP chairman to discuss the prospects of future cooperation.

BNP-M chief Akhtar Mengal had withdrawn his party’s support to the ruling alliance at the centre under the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) during the budget session of the National Assembly in June over the PTI’s failure to implement an accord with the BNP-M.

Announcing his decision, Mr Mengal had declared that his party had decided to sit on the opposition benches, but it would maintain its independent status.

However, the party later participated in the opposition’s MPC in Islamabad in which leaders of 11 parties had announced that they would launch a three-phased anti-government movement under an “action plan” starting from October with countrywide public meetings, protest demonstrations and rallies in December and a “decisive long march” towards Islamabad in January 2021.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2020