In an effort to reinforce trust and ensure PML-Q’s support in the no-confidence motion, the government’s two-member negotiation team, comprising Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Defence Minister Pervez Khattak met the allied party’s senior leader Pervez Elahi at his residence, a private TV channel reported. According to a statement, the federal ministers conveyed PM Imran Khan’s message to the PML-Q leadership. Matters of mutual interest, the current political situation in the country and solutions related to various issues being faced by the government’s ally were discussed in the meeting. PML-Q’s Tariq Bashir Cheema apprised the federal ministers about the issues being faced by the party during the past three and half years. During the meeting, both sides agreed to hold the next round of talks in Islamabad soon. FM Qureshi told the participants of the meeting that they will apprise PM Imran about the talks. In the meantime, Pervez Elahi will take Shujaat Hussain into confidence over the negotiations. Responding to a question, following the sitting, FM Qureshi termed the meeting “very positive”. By the grace of Allah, I have never returned empty-handed, he added.
Earlier in the day, Elahi said holding public rallies in Islamabad will have no effect on the vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly and the actors in political drama will change. In an informal gathering with journalists in Lahore, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the speaker of Punjab Assembly and a leader of the PML-Q, an important ally of the ruling PTI, said that the time for a “drop scene in the political drama” had not arrived, as the “actors” will change. Without giving details, he added that for now the “dish has been cooked”, of which half has already been distributed and the other half is being handed out.
Elahi, in an indirect reference to PM Imran Khan, also stated that those who bring religion into politics have no future in the field.
On another question, the speaker told journalists that the medicine, for the illness of those sitting outside Pakistan, has yet to come.
