ISLAMABAD, May 20: The unification committee of various factions of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) has summoned a meeting of the heads of its factions, including PML (N), at Lahore on May 27 to ponder over the possibility of forging unity without merging the groups.

Confirming to Dawn, Gohar Ayub Khan, the PML (QA) secretary-general and convener of the committee, said the need for unity among various league factions “is more necessary today than any other time.”

Apart from Raja Zafarul Haq of the PML (N), those invited to the meeting include Sardar Mohammad Nasrullah, Saifullah Saif, Manzoor Wattoo Amanullah Khan, Azad Bin Haider, while the functional league of Pagaro will be represented by Rana Ashraf, the Chattha faction by Sardar Asif Ahmed Ali and the PML (QA) by Gohar Ayub Khan.

Reacting to the report, Zafarul Haq said he had been contacted on telephone by Sardar Asif Ahmed Ali to meet him on May 22 in order to discuss unification efforts and extend invitation for the Lahore meeting.

He, however, deplored the statement of Gohar Ayub Khan that invitations would be extended to the factional heads, but meetings would not be held before the meeting of Lahore. “This shows that they were not interested in success of unification success but only wanted to demonstrate that they were willing for the unification.”

Meanwhile, PML (QA) leader Azim Chaudhry contradicted newspaper reports that the unification efforts had been abandoned on the pressure of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. On the contrary, he said Mr Hussain had clearly stated that he was in favour of a unification that did not hurt the basic structure of the league.

He stated that under the new scheme, the organizational structure of all the factions would remain intact, while unifying themselves under one banner.

Party sources said it had been done to minimize the leadership complications being the biggest hurdle so far.

A meeting between Mian Azhar, Gohar Ayub Khan, Pir Pagaro and Hamid Nasir Chattha at Karachi had agreed in principle to the reunification of three factions.

However, differences about the leadership of the unified league raised afterwards which ended up at abandoning the effort of a complete merger of the factions at least for the time being.