Calls for patience on PML-Q, PTI merger
The PTI and the PML-Q on Sunday decided on three candidates, namely Ahmad Nawaz Sukhera, Naseer Ahmad Khan and Nasir Saeed Khosa, as their picks for the Punjab caretaker chief minister.
Sukhera is a serving bureaucrat, Khan is the former federal health minister and Khosa is a retired civil servant.
Outgoing Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi announced the names while speaking to the media outside PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s Zaman Park residence in Lahore, where the two had deliberated on the matter.
On Saturday, the provincial assembly was automatically dissolved after Rehman refused to sign Elahi’s summary.
Elahi announced the names on Sunday night, saying that the selections were made by Imran himself.
He later also shared the names in a tweet, saying that the names would now be sent to Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman. He urged the opposition to “think with an open heart” and said that if it did, he could see consensus being reached.
“We have scheduled a meeting for tomorrow. All our MPAs MNAs and party officeholders are coming for that and we will discuss [the matter] there,” he said.
“They (the PTI) have told us that ‘if you are absorbed into the party (PTI) then it will be good for you and the party’,” he said, adding that his son Moonis also felt the same.
He also said that the preparations for introducing a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif were “100 per cent complete”.
Earlier, Elahi said on Sunday that his party “fulfilled its commitment” to Imran by dissolving the provincial assembly despite conflicting statements by people in the “opposite camp” as he revealed the PTI offered his son Moonis the presidency.
