The PTI and the PML-Q on Sunday decided on three candidates, namely Ahmad Nawaz Sukhera, Naseer Ahmad Khan and Nasir Saeed Khosa, as their picks for the Punjab caretaker chief minister.

Sukhera is a serving bureaucrat, Khan is the former federal health minister and Khosa is a retired civil servant.

Outgoing Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi announced the names while speaking to the media outside PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s Zaman Park residence in Lahore, where the two had deliberated on the matter.

On Thursday, after much ado, Elahi had signed a summary to dissolve the Punjab Assembly. In a brief one-line advice addressed to Governor Balighur Rehman, Elahi said: “I Parvez Elahi, chief minister of Punjab, hereby, advise you to dissolve the provincial assembly.”

On Saturday, the provincial assembly automatically dissolved after Rehman refused to sign Elahi’s summary.

Elahi announced the names on Sunday night, saying that the selections were made by Imran himself.

He later also shared the names in a tweet, saying that the names would now be sent to Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman. He urged the opposition to “think with an open heart” and said that if it did, he could see consensus being reached.

During the media talk, Elahi was also asked whether the PML-Q was considering joining the PTI.

“We have scheduled a meeting for tomorrow. All our MPAs MNAs and party officeholders are coming for that and we will discuss [the matter] there,” he said.

“They (the PTI) have told us that ‘if you are absorbed into the party (PTI) then it will be good for you and the party’,” he said, adding that his son Moonis also felt the same.

He also said that the preparations for introducing a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif were “100 per cent complete”.

‘They thought we would back out of dissolving assemblies’

Earlier today, Elahi said on Sunday that his party “fulfilled its commitment” to Imran by dissolving the provincial assembly despite conflicting statements by people in the “opposite camp” as he revealed the PTI offered his son Moonis the presidency.

In a press conference in Lahore, the former chief minister said that it was initially said that PML-Q would back out of dissolving the assembly.

“But we assured Imran that this was our commitment to him and we stood by it. They offered to give Moonis (Parvez’s son) the presidency but we refused because we didn’t want it to look like this was a trade.

“I told them we will look at these things later. There was no trade […] we did this (dissolve the assemblies) because we trust Imran and know that he is capable of leading the country,” he asserted.

Elahi went on to say during the upcoming polls, the PML-N would be hiding its face because it had been “completely exposed now”.

“This is the reason Nawaz has refused to return to Pakistan,” he said, adding that the PML-N supremo had realised that his party would be defeated.

“I stand by Imran’s statement […] We took a vote of confidence, now it is time for Shehbaz to take a vote of confidence,” the PML-Q leader said, referring to the PTI chief’s statement last night in which he had said that the prime minister will be “tested” through a confidence vote in a tit-for-tat move similar to the one he himself had faced as the premier in April.

Continuing, Elahi stated that when Shehbaz would have to undertake a confidence vote, cracks would appear in the coalition government.

“And you will see […] it will fall and then won’t ever be able to get back up.”