ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and Muttahida Muslim League’s (MML) Steering Committee Chairman Mir Zafarullah Jamali on Tuesday failed to convince Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to join the four-party alliance.
Jamali called on Shujaat at his residence to thrash out differences on the issue of PML unification. “He tried to convince Shujaat that the alliance was in the greater interest of all Muslim Leagues,” a source in the PML-Q told Pakistan Today.
He said Jamali, who had been assigned by Pir Pagara to contact Shujaat and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, to convince them of the PML unification, told Shujaat that if the PML-Q joined the alliance, the PML-N would also be compelled to reconcile with other PML factions.
“Jamali advised Shujaat to not seek an alliance with the PPP as it would be unnatural and fragile. Jamali had the opinion that the PPP’s central command was just trying to scuttle the PML unification through sending its emissaries to the PML-Q top brass and was not serious in taking the PML-Q into ruling alliance,” said a source privy to the talks. The source said Shujaat told Jamali that the PML-Q had not clinched any power-sharing deal with the PPP.
He said the PML-Q president asked Jamali to first exclude the likeminded group from the PML unification process. On the other hand, a PML likeminded leader said Jamali’s meeting with Shujaat had helped reducing tension between the Chaudhrys and the likeminded group thus paving way for the PML-Q’s joining the Muttahida Muslim League.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, Shujaat said he was ready for the alliance of the PML factions. “I do not accept the likeminded group as a party,” he said, adding that all political parties should unite to steer the country out of crisis. To a question, Jamali said, “Two former prime ministers have had a meeting for the unification of the PML and soon I will meet the third one [Nawaz Sharif].”
