LAHORE – Nine members of the Unification Bloc have replied to the show-cause notices issued to them by the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), claiming that they have neither left the party nor have they joined the PML-Nawaz. PML-Q sources claimed here on Monday that all nine dissident legislators submitted their replies to the party leadership. Unification Bloc Information Secretary Chaudhry Arshad Jatt, however, told Pakistan Today that 8 out of the 9 members who were given the notices had replied, while the reply of the ninth member (Atta Maneka) would be submitted today (Tuesday). Conversely, Atta Maneka, the second-in-command of the Unification Bloc, denied the claims and said it was all “negative propaganda” to demoralise his companions.
He even said that statements attributed to bloc leader Dr Tahir Ali Javed were completely baseless. He said that the show-cause notice was illegal and not worthy of a reply, so he had not bothered. However, he said he did not know about the submission of replies by other bloc members and added that no such decision was made by bloc leaders but could not say anything with confidence about the others. He said a reply from him was “out of the question” because the bloc was formed with the intension of unifying all the Muslim Leagues and they would succeed in it. Unification Bloc leaders Dr Tahir Ali Javaid, Saba Sadiq, Nasim Lodhi and others could not be reached for comment.
The PML-Q had issued show-cause notices to nine members of the Unification Bloc, including Dr Tahir Ali Javed, Atta Muhammad Maneka, Saba Sadiq, Aysha Javaid, Naseem Lodhi, Tariq Mahmood and Joyce Rufin. Earlier, bloc members had decided not to reply the notices but after consultation with other members, they had submitted their replies to the PML-Q leadership. All the members stressed that they had not left the party and were still PML-Q members. They said that because of majority in the Punjab Assembly, they had requested the speaker to change their parliamentary leader.
Political sources privy to the issue claimed however that the replies were submitted to keep the option of rejoining the PML-Q open because neither had the PML-N leadership accommodated them in the provincial government nor had they found consensus in their own faction. They also claimed that many bloc members were wary of giving up everything to PML-N and wanted to save something for the future. The sources said that many thought the PML-N was trying to avoid an eventuality where it was compelled to use bloc members to get votes in the provincial legislature, since that would earn more taunts and jeers from opponents.
PML-Q Punjab parliamentary leader Chaudhary Zaheer-ud-Din claimed however that the bloc had withdrawn support for the PML-N following the show-cause notices, and the bloc would abandon social contact with the ruling party of Punjab when the disqualification references reached the court. He claimed that the bloc had submitted replies to the show-cause notices, in which they not only denied support for the PML-N but also declared that they would not back the ruling party in Punjab in future. Zaheer said that members of the so-called unification bloc should have the moral courage to make public their reply through the media, just as they had announced their support for the PML-N on the media.
