ISLAMABAD: Hours after President Dr Arif Alvi announced April 30 as the date for the general elections in Punjab in line with the Supreme Court’s verdict, the heads of three major ruling coalition parties met at the Prime Minister House to discuss the political options available to them.

“Former president Asif Zardari and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman called on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif here on Friday. In the meeting, political situation in the country came under discussion,” the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported without providing further details.

There was no official word from any of the three political parties — PML-N, JUI-F and PPP — about the meeting and some of the senior PPP leaders, when contacted, even expressed their ignorance about taking place of any such meeting.

However, sources in the government claimed that during the meeting, Mr Zardari suggested that the ruling coalition should go for elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as they had no other option available after the Supreme Court’s judgement in the suo motu case.

They said there was a general consensus that since the government had left with no other option to further delay the polls in the two provinces after the SC verdict, they should direct their party workers to make preparations for the elections.

However, the sources said, there had been no decision yet whether the parties in the ruling coalition would contest the elections individually or from a single platform. The leaders agreed to hold more consultations and involve other coalition partners in the process as well before coming out with a final strategy.

The sources said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was also contacted during the meeting through a telephonic link.

A senior government functionary, while talking to Dawn on condition of anonymity, said delaying the elections in Punjab and KP would amount to contempt of the court and could also cause further political damage to the ruling coalition.

In his opinion, now only the Supreme Court could delay the elections on some pretext and the government had no such choice.

Some TV channels, on the other hand, aired contradictory reports claiming that there was a difference of opinion among the top coalition leaders as both Maulana Fazl and Mr Sharif did not agree to Mr Zardari’s proposal to go into the elections as they believed that it was not an appropriate time for them to face the PTI in the electoral field due to the prevailing economic crunch in the country.

Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, who had been in Dubai for the past many days, did not respond when, through a WhatsApp message, she was asked to comment on the reports regarding division within the ruling alliance on the election issue.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2023