Chaudhry Shujaat visits Elahi in jail a second time

PML-Q stalwarts discuss political landscape with estranged leader

LAHORE:

Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain on Sunday paid a visit to his estranged cousin, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) President Parvez Elahi at Lahore Camp Jail again

According to details, Shujaat’s son, Chaudhry Salik, and brother, Chaudhry Wajahat, were also present in the meeting.

Apart from having asked about Elahi's health, they exchanged views on the present political situation.

Prior to the meeting, the medical board team also came to Camp Jail to conduct a check-up for Elahi. The team included Dr Amir Hussain Bandesha and Dr Abdul Basit.

Notably, Elahi has been in police custody since the beginning of June. He was recently rearrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) over a fresh case soon after a court had ordered his release.

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Last month, Shujaat had met Elahi at Lahore Camp Jail in a sign of ice breaking between the cousins who were once regarded as inseparable.

The two had had a public falling out however, after Elahi who was once a senior leader of the PML-Q, had joined the PTI in March, two months after the PTI had decided to dissolve the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assemblies where the party was in power.

Elahi is among the PTI leaders who are standing firm with the party, despite a government crackdown that is followed by a mass exodus of leaders from the former ruling party.

Meanwhile, four bigwigs of the PML-N and PPP -- the two major parties in the ruling coalition -- have converged in Dubai to contemplate over a political strategy, triggering a debate of an imminent shake-up in the coming days back in the country.

The simultaneous presence of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif; his daughter and party’s senior vice president Maryam Nawaz, PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari, and his son Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in the city suggests that a political storm is surely on the horizon.