LAHORE, June 29: Governor Khalid Maqbool on Saturday met a delegation of PML-QA leaders and told them that the party would have to rely on its own muscle to win the elections in the country’s biggest province.

He said the government would try to create an atmosphere favourable to the party.

Assuring them that former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto or former chief minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif were not coming back to Pakistan, the governor said the party should strengthen its contact with the electorate to be able to win seats enough to form government in the Punjab.

This was the second meeting of this nature between the two ‘allies’ which lasted over two hours. The first meeting was held recently in which Mian Muhammad Azhar, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi were also present.

The delegation was led by party’s provincial president Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. Humayun Akhtar Khan, Arshad Lodhi, Raja Besharat, Chaudhry Akram, Begum Mehnaz Rafi, Kamil Ali Agha, Akhtar Rasool and Mian Abdus Sattar were among the participants.

Home Secretary Ijaz Shah was also present.

The governor said that the PML-QA should refute media reports that the former prime ministers stood any chance in the future or that they were returning to the country to take part in political activities.

Some participants complained that the bureaucracy and Nazimeen were not as helpful as they should be.

According to a participant, the governor wished that parties supportive of the government’s reforms should cooperate with each other in the elections.