ISLAMABAD, Aug 24: The People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-N on Tuesday again failed to nominate a joint ARD candidate for the election of prime minister's office against Shaukat Aziz, sources told Dawn.

This failure had deepened the crisis within the ARD, whose existence, the sources said, was in serious danger. A meeting of senior PPP and PML-N leaders was held in the chamber of the Senate's opposition leader in the Parliament House on Tuesday night.

The PPP and the PML-N, the two major component parties of the ARD, have nominated their parties' presidents as candidates for the election likely to be held on Friday.

The PPP claims that being the largest political party in the alliance, it has the right to nominate its candidate for the election, but the PML-N says that it has always supported the PPP on every occasion in the past and this time the People's Party should accept its candidate.

The PPP has nominated Makhdoom Amin Fahim while the PML-N has nominated its jailed leader Makhdoom Javed Hashmi as the candidate. Another big opposition group, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), has also offered its support to the ARD in case it nominates Mr Hashmi.

Meanwhile, speaking to Dawn, PML-N's Khwaja Saad Rafiq and PPP's Raja Pervez Ashraf claimed that the issue would be resolved amicably and the alliance would remain intact. Another round of talks would be held on Wednesday and hopefully they would succeed in nominating a consensus candidate before the announcement of the election schedule, they added.

Saad Rafiq said they had told the PPP that Makhdoom Javed Hashmi was facing a tough time due to his struggle for the cause of democracy, therefore he was a natural candidate against Gen Musharraf's nominee.

He expressed the hope that Mr Hashmi, if nominated, would get record votes. A decision to nominate Mr Hashmi would also bring opposition groups more closer. He was of the view that if Mr Hashmi was nominated as ARD candidate, some of the dissident treasury members might also vote for him.

Asked about the strategy in case the PPP did not agree on Mr Hashmi's nomination, he said it was pre-mature to disclose the move now. Both the parties had similar positions while nominating a candidate for the Attock by-polls against Shaukat Aziz, but the matter was resolved at that time due to the direct intervention of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

This time also, the sources said, the issue could be resolved only after the intervention of the exiled leaders. The meeting was attended by Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, Raza Rabbani, Syed Naveed Qamar and Syed Khursheed Shah from the PPP while acting PML-N parliamentary leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Khwaja Saad Rafiq and Siddiqul Farooque represented the PML-N.