LAHORE, Oct 28: The PML-QA has started efforts to form an electoral alliance with the Awami National Party, and formal talks between the two sides will be held in the near future, the PML-QA sources told Dawn here on Sunday.

PML leader Shujaat Husain opened the channel of communication with the ANP with a meeting with party leader Wali Khan and provincial party chief Begum Nasim Wali Khan in Peshawar on Saturday.

However, talks about an alliance would be held with party president Asfandyar Wali, the sources said.

The ANP, at present, is a component of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy which is working for the ouster of the Musharraf government. The PML-QA, on the other hand, is working like an ally of the government.

The PML and the ANP remained allies for about eight years till they parted ways during the second Nawaz rule on differences over renaming the NWFP as Pakhtoonkhwa. The ANP demanded that the province should be given a name identifiable with the people living there. However, the then Sharif government refused to accept the demand.

Both the parties have split after the break-up of their alliance. Leaders opposed to Nawaz Sharif have formed a parallel faction called the PML-QA, while leaders not in agreement with the policies being pursued by the ANP have set up National Awami Party Pakistan under the leadership of Ajmal Khattak.

“We have been allies in the past and we will again work together,” a PML-QA leader said on Sunday.

The PML-QA has already started preparing itself for the next elections which Gen Musharraf says will be held in October next year. The party wants to form election alliance with all religious parties as it thinks that the PML is a natural ally of religious parties. It has already reached an understanding with the Pakistan Awami Tehrik of Dr Tahirul Qadri, and is making contacts with others.

Recently, PML-QA leaders also exchanged views with the JUP of Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani.

It is said that the PML-QA may have to face a number of difficulties in forming alliance with religious parties as most of them are reluctant to sit with the Pakistan Awami Tehrik.

The JUP leadership expressed its willingness to cooperate with the PML-QA but expressed reservations about the PAT.

“We give you a blank cheque,” the JUP president reportedly said while talking to a PML-QA leader indicating that his party could go to any extent to work together. But the very next moment he also indicated that he could not sit with the PAT.

The Jamaat-i-Islami and the JUI, with which the PML-QA wants to have an election alliance also don’t have a positive opinion about the PAT, and there is little possibility of their joining hands with any party which accepts the PAT as an ally.

The Jamaat-i-Islami had made its opinion about the PAT known to everyone when it did not extend invitation to it for participation in the all-party conference it held at Mansoora on Sept 16.