LAHORE: Mir Balakh Sher Mazari, a former caretaker prime minister, and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi separately called on PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif at his Raiwind residence here on Wednesday.

The meeting sparked speculations that the two leaders planned to join the PML-N.

Brief statements issued after the meetings said national political situation and solutions to steer the country out of the current crises were discussed.

Politicians in the Mazari family are already in the PML-N and political observers say it would not be a surprise if the former prime minister also joined the party.

Sources close to Mr Qureshi quoted him as saying that in the present situation he felt out of place in the Pakistan People’s Party and was looking for ‘other options’.

“If I do stick to the PPP, I will be treated as a pariah,” they quoted him as saying.

The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf has approached Mr Qureshi, offering him a significant central office in the party, but his friends are advising him against joining the PTI.

Mr Qureshi, who served as finance minister in the Punjab government in early 1990s, is being constantly wooed by the PML-N. He had a detailed meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif last month, but it was missed by the inquisitive media. The PML-N, it is learnt, is trying to kill two birds with one stone through Mr Qureshi: making a dent in the PPP in the Seraiki belt where the N League is comparatively weak and giving a strong message to Makhdoom Javed Hashmi that it has found an alternative in the Multan politics.

Mr Hashmi, who has been publicly criticising the Sharifs, is reportedly annoyed with the party leadership because he believes that the Sharifs deprived him of a chance to become head of the state by not nominating him as their candidate in the Sept 2008 presidential polls.

PML-Q nominee Mushahid Hussain Sayed had announced his withdrawal in favour of Mr Hashmi, but Nawaz Sharif pitched former chief justice Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui against PPP co-chairperson Asif Zardari in the contest, saying the Charter of Democracy he (Nawaz) had signed with Benazir Bhutto did not allow supporting a political person for the office.

Talking to newsmen after the meeting, Mr Qureshi said it was time to rise above person and party in the larger “national interest”.

He said the PML-Q alliance with the PPP was illogical and ideological workers of the party did not accept it.

He recalled that the PML-Q had been supporting the (Musharraf) dictatorship against which the PPP had been fighting.

Paying tribute to Nawaz Sharif, he said both Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto had put the country on the democratic path (through a joint struggle against Musharraf).