PMLN-PPP alliance for next polls: Bilawal with ifs and buts, asks for clear roadmap

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have now formally discussed the option of an ‘electoral alliance’ for future general elections, sources told ‘The News’ on Friday.

The sources said the PPP Chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, has floated this proposal during his meeting with PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz on Friday and he was of the view that if the PPP sacrificed its Sindh government in the efforts to topple the Imran-led federal government, then what would it get in the next general elections. They said Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had proposed that if the PML-N made an electoral alliance with the PPP in the Punjab, then his party would make a similar alliance with the PML-N in urban areas of Sindh like Karachi and Hyderabad in next general elections.

“Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had also maintained this in the recent meeting, held at the residence of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman a couple of days ago in Islamabad. Bilawal said the PPP would agree to sacrifice more as compared to other parties like PML-N, JUI-F and Awami National Party (ANP), if the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) would submit resignations from the national and provincial assemblies,” the sources said.

The sources also confided that Bilawal insisted that both PML-N vice-president, Maryam Nawaz and JUI-F chief, Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman that they should give a clear roadmap about what would happen if the elections would be held in the next year. They said the PPP chairman never wanted the political parties that are part of PDM to oust the present government and go to the elections without any electoral alliance.

“Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also wanted Maulana Fazlur Rehman to offer a plan of seat-adjustment between PPP and JUI-F in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) for the next elections,” the sources said. The sources claimed that Bilawal wanted clear-cut political benefits in the next general elections in case PPP would sacrifice the Sindh government, adding “The PPP chairman also stated that if the Senate elections would be held according to the schedule, then the PPP would never lose a single seat and instead it may get one or more seats with the help of mutual adjustments.”

They said the former president and PPP’s Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari also discussed various issues with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif during their three telephonic contacts in the recent days that revolved around the future prospects for the PPP if the PDM succeeded to topple the incumbent government. Zubair Umer, spokesman of the PML-N vice president, Maryam Nawaz, told ‘The News’, “I was present in the meeting held between Maryam Nawaz and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and it will be quite early to say that both parties will make an electoral alliance in next general elections.”

“In simple words, I can say Maryam Nawaz and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari have not discussed the prospects of any electoral alliance between the PML-N and PPP,” he said. Former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira, who were present in the meeting, were not available for comments.