News
Friday, December 30, 2011
PML-Q MPAs turn their backs on PML-N, decide to join PTI
LAHORE: More than a dozen MPAs of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) forward bloc, who have been supporting the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) in the Punjab Assembly, have decided to join the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). According to sources, the PML-N leadership offered uplift funds of millions of rupees to stop them from joining the PTI. Sources privy to the PTI leadership said that these MPAs had contacted the PTI high-ups and that negotiations in this regard were in their final stages. After getting to know the situation and smelling the change of loyalties, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Shairf contacted PML-Q forward bloc chief Atta Muhammad Manika and gave him the assignment of hindering the MPAs in joining the PTI. They also decided to release development funds for these MPAs if they cancelled their decision. Manika was very active in this regard and began contacting different MPAs.Sources said that these forward bloc parliamentarians were annoyed with the Punjab CM, who had promised to give them development funds and had also assured them they would contest the next general elections on PML-N tickets. According to the soures, he reneged on the first promise and the second would take time before it could be fulfilled. If these MPAs join the PTI and resign from the Punjab Assembly, then the PML-N government may face a political crisis because it would lose a simple majority in the Punjab Assembly. moazam baig
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk