ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) are in the process of evolving a strategy on how to take over Balochistan by overthrowing the Pakistan People’s Party-led government, Pakistan Today has learnt.
According to a PML-Q source, PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, in his recent meetings with JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman, proposed the latter to form a coalition government in Balochistan.
Majority: “Chaudhry Shujaat told Fazl that the PML-Q was the majority party in the Balochistan Assembly with 19 seats while the PPP was 14 members strong, therefore it had no right to rule the province. He assured that the PML-Q’s central command would bring its dissident MPAs back if the JUI-F clinched a power-sharing deal with it,” the source said.
Out of 19 PML-Q MPAs in the house of 65, only Yar Muhammad Rind is not part of the provincial coalition government due to a family feud with the Raisanis. As many as 13 PML-Q MPAs have joined the PPP-led coalition government by making a dissident group, while the other five MPAs are part of the coalition in their independent capacity.
The party strength position in Balochistan Assembly is as follows: Awami National Party 3, Balochistan National Party (Awami)-7, PML-Q MPAs opting to sit on opposition benches-1, independent-6, independents (Opposition)-2, JUI-F-10, JUI (Ideological)-1, PML-Q dissident-13, National Party-1, PML-Nawaz-1, PML-Q-5 and PPP-14.
The PML-Q source said Shujaat was confident that after the JUI-F’s support for the PML-Q, not only the party’s renegades would rejoin the central command but other smaller parties would also forge an alliance with the PML-Q.
Rind told Pakistan Today that his party was negotiating with the JUI-F to clinch a power-sharing deal in the province. “Shujaat himself has stated recently that the PML-Q can bring its own governments in Punjab and Balochistan,” he said, adding that the party’s dissident MPAs would also rejoin the mainstream party once the deal has been clinched. Rind said that he was in constant contact with Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri and Maulana Muhammad Khan Sheerani in this regard.
On the other hand, Muhammad Aslam Bhutani, the Balochistan Assembly speaker who was part of the PML-Q dissident group, said that efforts to dislodge Raisani’s government would not succeed. “All the PML-Q MPAs except one are already sitting in the government. Therefore they will not support any such move by the Chaudhrys and Fazl’s party,” he added. He said Balochistan Chief Minister Aslam Raisani had said at numerous times that there was no PPP government in the province as it was in fact a coalition government.
Separately, talking to reporters at Parliament House, Shujaat said that the PML-Q did not want an in-house change. “We want the government to complete its tenure and the PML-Q is not going to become a coalition partner,” he added. Shujaat said PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif was rescuing the ‘crumbling government’.
“If the Sharifs do not want to sit with us, we are not ready to stand with them,” he said, adding that the PML-Q could send the Punjab government packing. “Whenever we will call, the unification bloc in the Punjab will join us,” he added.
