KARACHI, Aug 3: Leader of the house in the Senate and deputy secretary-general of the Pakistan People’s Party Mian Raza Rabbani has claimed that the component parties of the ruling coalition have apparently reached a consensus on the extremely sticky issues of reinstating the deposed judges and the impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf.

He said this while addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Sunday.

However, when Dawn contacted Mr Rabbani for details of this apparent breakthrough he declined to comment, saying that he was in a meeting and couldn’t discuss the points he had made in the “lengthy” press briefing.

Mr Rabbani said at the press conference that there were no differences between the PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-N over the issue of deposed judges and that there was only a variance of opinion between the two coalition partners on how to go about the reinstatement.

He said “vested interests” were trying to destabilize the government in order to allow the president to use the much-maligned Article 58(2)b.

The PPP leader was also quoted as saying that the federal cabinet had decided to do away with all “anti-labour” sections in the IRO 2002 and Banking Ordinance.