ISLAMABAD, Feb 14: A decision in principle has been taken by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League to invite the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal to join the federal cabinet, ruling party's central organizing secretary, Azeem Chaudhry told Dawn here on Saturday.

He said an understanding had already been reached with the MMA in this regard. However, he said, no decision had been taken as to which ministries could be offered to the six-party religious alliance.

Currently, ministries like law and justice, and religious affairs are vacant while a number of ministers of state were still to be appointed. The ministry of labour and manpower, which became vacant due to the death of late Lalika, would also be filled.

Mr Azeem said members from the MMA and PML's coalition partners, specially MQM, the National Alliance, PML (Chattha) group, PML (Zia) group, the Patriots and some independents were also expected to be taken into the cabinet, besides accommodating some more people from the ruling party.

He said soon after Muharram formal merger of all the factions of the PML would be made public along with the list of names of various office-bearers of the unified party.

This will be followed soon by the announcement of names of chairmen and chairpersons for the 38 parliamentary standing committees.

And this will be followed by the announcement of names of new inductees in the federal cabinet.

All these issues were discussed threadbare between Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain here on Friday. Matters pertaining to overall political situation and controversy surrounding the nuclear proliferation also reportedly came up for discussion.

Mr Azeem said the National Assembly speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain had been requested to allow an amendment in the previous resolution adopted for the appointment of chairmen and chairpersons of the standing committees. The resolution was adopted on the move of then Minister for Labour Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Abdus Sattar Lalika who died of cardiac arrest at Lahore on Friday.

Another important ruling party leader, when contacted, told Dawn that since every member, specially of the PML(Q), wanted to become a federal minister, it had been decided to first appoint 38 members as chairmen and chairpersons of standing committees. "And after their appointment the government would call a National Assembly session presumably on Feb 28 and/or 29 to discuss and formalise the matter," he said.

It had also been decided at the highest level that there would be a reshuffle in the cabinet to improve the working of different important ministries, he added.