AJK politics: PML-Q backs Kashmir alliance

PPP, PML-Q and Muslim Conference join hands to keep PML-N out.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam) has assured the Muslim Conference of Azad Jammu and Kashmir of its support for an alliance between the Conference and the Pakistan Peoples Party against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in the next general election, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The next general election in the AJK is scheduled to be held on June 26, 2011. The last date for submission of nomination papers in May 26, 2011.

The assurance was given by PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to AJK Prime Minister Sardar Attiq Ahmed, leader of the Muslim Conference, during a meeting at Hussain’s Lahore residence on Sunday, according to the PML-Q media cell.

Shujaat assured Attiq that the PML-Q had no plans to register itself as a political party in the AJK. He said his family had old ties with the Muslim Conference and would never want to contest elections against it.

Three political parties are registered with the election commission in the AJK – the PPP, the PML-N and the Muslim Conference. Sardar Attiq is leading the Muslim Conference, former prime ministers Raja Farooq Haider the PML-N and Barrister Sultan Mehmood the PPP.

The PPP had earlier split into two factions but these were merged following Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani’s recent address at a public meeting. Farooq Haider was earlier a member of the Muslim Conference. He recently joined the PML-N after a rift with the leadership.

Sources in the PML-Q said that because the party was not registered in AJK, the leadership had decided to support the PPP, its ally in the centre, and the Muslim Conference to ensure that the PML-N could not come to power in AJK assembly. They said the PML-Q leaders assured Attiq that their voters would support the conference-PPP alliance in the next general elections. They said meetings would soon be held between the PML-Q leadership, Sardar Attiq and President Asif Ali Zardari to further discuss formation of the alliance.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2011.