01:19
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ISLAMABAD:
The PML-Q faces an uphill task, much tougher than any other political
party, to keep its electables, especially a score of its sitting members
of the national and Punjab assemblies with it on the eve of the
upcoming general elections.
“I personally know that
approximately a dozen and a half PML-Q MNAs are in touch with the PML-N
while some eight others are in contact with the PPP to get their tickets
in the next polls,” a senior party leader told The News on condition of
anonymity.
He said that both categories include some
incumbent federal ministers and ministers of state, who were inducted in
the federal cabinet on the PML-Q quota. They are glued to their present
positions to get from the government maximum development funds and
enjoy other perks and privileges of state patronage.
The
PML-Q leader said his party leadership continues to quietly urge the PPP
bigwigs not to wean away their winning figures. It has argued that if
they switched sides, the PML-Q would not be able to damage the PML-N to
the extent it desires by splitting the League vote, he said.
He
said that some time back a PML-Q federal minister, who would surely
join the PPP and get its ticket in the next elections, has become so
close to it that his brother was about to be named PPP president in his
native district.
However, a political couple from the same
region staunchly protested to the PPP leadership over such inclusion
and threatened to quit the party if the talented brother was given the
office, the PML-Q leader said.
He said that the PPP
leadership then changed its mind as it did not want to lose the
political couple at the time. The same minister, who defends his PML-Q
in TV chat shows almost daily, had also accompanied President Asif Ali
Zardari during his visit to Ajmer Sharif.
He was recently
rumoured to join the PML-Q, which was promptly denied. The PPP continues
to be rudderless in this district after a prominent leader left it in
2002 and became the leading force among the “patriots” of that time.
The
PML-Q leader said that the district rivalry weighed heavily in most
likely desertions in his party. If one local group is with one party,
the other has to be with its rival, and this is how the district
politics works, he explained.
He said that if Chaudhry
Pervaiz Elahi and Manzoor Wattoo worked together sincerely and
single-mindedly, they form a lethal combination to make their alliance
awesome in Punjab. But if they persist with going in the opposition
directions as they are now doing, they will hurt their respective
parties, benefiting their rival, he said.
The PML-Q leader
said for having been chief ministers both enjoy political clout and
have relations with almost all powerful political families of Punjab.
“Already a cold war is on its peak between the two while they publicly
pretend that they are on the same page to make their coalition robust.”
The
cold relations between the two, he said, recently emerged once again
when Pervaiz Elahi did not attend a high-level meeting of the alliance
at the Governor House Lahore and sent his son, Moonis Elahi and two
other party leaders.
The PML-Q leader said that a major
drawback both Pervaiz Elahi and Wattoo suffer from is that they do not
have popular politicians, but their advantage is that they are good in
the traditional drawing room politics and wheeling and dealing.
He
said their success would come before everybody only when they will
individually or collectively make a visible dent in the PML-N. But it is
not foreseeable in the near future, he said and added that most
influential political aspirants are looking towards the PML-N in Punjab,
which is clearly from the number of key figures joining it.
Posted in: National
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