ISLAMABAD, May 19: The three-party National Alliance led by Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari lost its separate identity on Wednesday as it merged in the unified Pakistan Muslim League.

The three parties, National People's Party of former caretaker prime minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Millat Party of Mr Leghari and the Sindh Democratic Alliance of Arbab Ghulam Rahim had set up the alliance with three other parties (which later parted ways) in 2002 and jointly contested the election and won 56 seats in the National Assembly, Senate and provincial assemblies of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan.

A resolution dissolving the alliance and merging with the PML was read out by Mr Leghari at a joint meeting which was attended also by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. It carried a 20-point working guidelines for the new party.

Chaudhry Shujaat announced in his speech that "from today onwards the 20-point resolution presented by the Sardar from Dera Ghazi Khan will become the basis of the party manifesto".

He said the PML was the mother of all political parties but the people who politically benefited from it later left it for their personal interests. Chaudhry Shujaat said: "We have to refix our priorities by putting the price hike and unemployment on top since they were the burning problems of the country".

The resolution which was later signed by the heads of the three dissolved parties, Mr Leghari (Millat Party), Mir Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi (NPP) and Arbab Ghulam Rahim (SDA) became part of the party documents.

The resolution outlines political, economic and social conditions in the country and expresses determination to remove inequalities, provide cushion to the poorer sections of the society, ensure good governance and enforce discipline in national life.

"Pakistan stands at crossroads and it has to decide whether it has to take forward steps or remain sunk in the past", remarked Mr Leghari. Two formal steps were taken to accomplish the dissolution of the NA and its merger with the PML.

First, the general council and parliamentary party of the NA met at a local hotel. The merger ceremony was joined in by Premier Jamali and Chaudhry Shujaat. The second was a brief ceremony at the PML house which was attended by senior Leaguers, including a sizeable number of women members.

Earlier, some speakers of the three parties in the NA expressed optimism as well as apprehensions about the success of the merger with the PML in which their parties were losing their separate identities.

MNA from Bhawalpur Riaz Pirzada was most critical of the decision to merger into a party, which according to him, was already facing fragmentation and internal feuds.

He said that the prime minister's house showed a certain amount of money allocated to him, although not a single penny had so far been spent in his constituency.