Lahore - The latest move by Prime Minister Imran Khan to assuage the allied parties seems to have left them cold with one of the coalition partners openly expressing dismay over the new initiative.
Prime Minister on Thursday formed three committees comprising senior PTI leaders to sort out coalition matters with the allied parties separately.
The new committee to liaise with PML-Q leaders includes Punjab Governor Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar, Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar and Federal Minister Shafqat Mahmood. Previously, another team of PTI leaders comprising Jahangir Khan Tareen, Pervaiz Khattack and Shahzad Arbab was in contact with the PML-Q leadership.
The Chaudhrys were quite comfortable with the previous team and all modalities had been settled with the government team. A few days back, senior PML-Q leader Moonis Elahi had expressed his utmost satisfaction with the progress made on different contentious issues saying that a road map had been prepared which was about to enter the implementation phase.
Thursday’s development has, however, irked the PML-Q leaders who were pregnant with hope of a major breakthrough in negotiations with the government.
Moonis Elahi Friday strongly reacted to the latest move terming it a “self sabotage”. He took to twitter to express his disapproval of the new committee formed to negotiate with their leadership.
“We were making excellent progress with earlier committee comprising of Jahangir Khan Tareen, Pervaiz Khattack and Shahzad Arbab. Why is PTI out to self sabotage itself??”, Moonis said in his tweet.
Speaker Punjab Assembly Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi also showed his resentment over the development. Talking to CPNE delegation, he said that government should not treat coalition partners as its “second wife”. Elahi questioned the government’s move to announce new committees saying he was astonished over the decision. He said the previous committee was changed when it was making progress in negotiations.
He also complained that government had no trust on its allies. Pervaiz urged the government to understand that allies and the government were in the same boat and their losses and problems were the same.
Commenting on the development, PML-Q spokesperson, Kamil Ali Agha said that Government was not serious to settle issues with the coalition partners. Expressing distrust over the Ch Sarwar and Usman Buzdar, the PML-Q leader said that even the common man had no trust over the two as they had failed to deliver. He alleged that government was playing games with the PML-Q.
Also, the prime minister’s decision to exclude Jahangir Khan Tareen from government’s negotiation team has not been received well by other coalition partners- the MQM, the GDA, BAP, BNP and JWP.
Insiders said that none of the allied parties was happy over new negotiation teams announced by the prime minister. “The PTI government will have to learn how to drift with the tide”, a source in one of the allied parties commented on government’s latest move to woo its allies.
Meanwhile, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman is pumping up the smaller parties for another street agitation, it has been learnt.
He has already announced to kick start the new round of protests by staging a public rally in Lahore on March 19.
“A Shoora meeting of the JUI-F was held yesterday which decided to contact smaller parties of the defunct MMA to seek their support for an anti-government movement”, JUI-F’s Secretary Information Hafiz Hussain Ahmad told this paper. He said that JUI-F may also contact the PML-N and the PPP by the end of March this year to enlist their support. “We expect the two major parties to form their future strategy in two months time”, he said, adding that there was little hope of their joining hands with the JUI-F given their under hand dealings with the government.
Hafiz Hussain Ahmad also hinted at building momentum for snap polls as part of their political strategy.
