The PPP leadership’s attempts to reach out to Punjab and KP MPAs to secure support for its candidates in the Senate polls have triggered counter moves by the PML-N and the PTI, who are now trying to woo PPP MPAs in Sindh, according to sources in the PML-N.
On Saturday, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari held a meeting of the party’s KP chapter, in which a strategy for the Senate elections was discussed, said the sources privy to the matter.
They said that the PPP is eyeing members of the Qaumi Watan Party as well as dissident leaders of the PTI and the PML-N in the KP Assembly.
Zardari is also scheduled to hold a meeting of the PPP’s Punjab chapter to win over the provincial lawmakers who have informally parted ways with the PML-N but have not announced their decisions publically.
To counter such moves, the PTI and the PML-N are both focusing on Karachi.
On Saturday, PTI chairman Imran Khan landed in the Quaid’s city where he strongly criticised the PPP leadership and the Sindh government.
Ostensibly Khan was in the metropolis to offer condolences to the families of Naqeebullah Mehsud and Intezar Ahmed, the two youths who were killed by the police “encounters”.
However, sources said that Khan also held meetings with PTI lawmakers from Sindh as well as members of the PPP, the PML-N and the Pakistan Muslim League – Functional (PML-F) to seek their support in the Senate elections.
Yesterday Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also flew into Karachi, officially to inaugurate the Lyari Expressway.
However, a senior leader of the PML-N’s Sindh chapter said that the premier held meetings with party leaders in the province who were tasked with winning maximum support of provincial legislators for PML-N candidates in the Senate elections.
“This is a unique scenario … the PML-N and the PTI have daggers drawn at each other but they have a shared goal now – to block the PPP from securing majority in the Senate,” said the PML-N leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Of late reports have been doing the rounds that Zardari wants to get his sister Faryal Talpur elevated as Senate chairperson.
PML-N KP president Ameer Muqam did not mince words: “It may be Zardari’s wishful thinking to win maximum seats in Senate, but it will not happen. The PML-N is Pakistan’s largest political party and the Senate polls would be our show.”
“The PPP has no political support outside Sindh, so it relies on horse trading. This will not work,” he declared.
On the other hand, Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah of the PPP has repeatedly denied that his party had any hand in the Baluchistan Assembly debacle, saying the PML-N lost the provincial government due to its own policies which caused resentment among provincial legislators.
The PML-N leadership has also repeatedly accused Zardari of buying the loyalties of its leaders in the Baluchistan Assembly in order to topple the PML-N-led government in the province.
Like the PML-N, the PTI too believes that Zardari and aides are pumping money into buying the loyalties of PTI MPAs, which is the reason why the PTI chairman is focusing on Sindh ahead of the Senate polls.
Last month, reports were doing the rounds that the PML-N and the PPP had reached an underhand deal whereby the PPP supported the legislation in the Senate on the delimitation of constituencies and in return received “concrete” assurances from the PML-N to secure a few seats in the Senate from Punjab’s quota and some seats in the general elections from southern Punjab.
It is also believed that the PPP wanted the PML-N to agree to Faryal Talpur’s elevation as Senate chairperson.
However, PML-N president Nawaz Sharif did not agree to it, after which the PPP reportedly lobbied to send the PML-N government in Baluchistan Assembly packing in order to bring a favourable set-up in the province to win seats in the Senate polls from Baluchistan’s quota.
According to political sources, after the Baluchistan Assembly debacle, the reported deal between the PML-N and the PPP on the Senate polls is unlikely to materialise.
“There had been an informal understanding between the PML-N and the PPP that they would not act to destabilise the governments of one another,” said a close aide of Sharif, requesting anonymity.
“The PPP broke the accord, and now there are no concessions for the PPP in the Senate polls from Punjab’s quota or elsewhere,” added the aide.