Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders have confirmed that the former planned to overthrow the incumbent Punjab government-headed by Usman Buzdar, however, the latter did not agree to it.
It was confirmed during a talk-show, 11th Hour on ARY News, by Nabil Gabol of the PPP and Attaullah Tarar of the PML-N.
Nabil Gabol said that the PPP had sought PML-N’s support to overthrow the Buzdar-led government, however, they rejected the offer which led to differences between the two parties.
Attaullah Tarar, who was also part of the panel, confirmed the offer but said that how could they support the chief ministership to a party that only had 10 seats in the provincial assembly. “The PML-N has 165 seats, how, it is possible that we accept a chief minister from a party having 10 lawmakers in the house,” he said.
It is pertinent to mention here that PPP has seven lawmakers in the Punjab Assembly while PML-Q which is part of the federal and provincial governments has 10 seats.
Nabeel Gabol, however, said that if the move was made at that time it would have weakened the PTI-led government in Punjab. “Whosoever was handed the Punjab government, atleast, it would have been snatched from the PTI,” he said adding that it would have been a booster for the opposition alliance with governments in two major provinces, i.e Sindh and Punjab.
In less than a week after jointly contesting elections for top Senate offices, cracks within the ranks of the opposition’s Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) became visible on Tuesday when the alliance leadership announced postponement of their March 26 anti-government long march due to differences over the issue of submitting en masse resignations from the assemblies.
PPP believes that the opposition has gained much ground and political space after the recent by-elections in the country, noting that the victory of Mr Gilani in Senate elections had caused a major dent in the ruling alliance. The PPP leaders believe that the by-polls and the Senate elections have strengthened the party position therefore the opposition should give tough time to the government while staying in the assemblies, instead of leaving the field open for the government.
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Before the start of the meeting, PPP secretary general Farhatullah Babar had stated that the PPP believed that after the Senate election, “the possibility of resignation from the parliament has further receded”.