Alliances: Sardar Talib Nakai to join PPP

PML-Q MNA from Kasur meets with prime minister.

LAHORE: Sardar Talib Hassan Nakai, currently a Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid MNA from Kasur, is to join the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) ahead of the next elections, sources told The Express Tribune.

Nakai conveyed his decision to Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani at the State Guest House on Sunday.

The sources said that Nakai’s meeting with Gilani was arranged by the PPP’s Neelam Jabbar, a former provincial minister for population welfare and MPA from Kasur.

Nakai was a member of the dissident PML (Like Minded) group and had been flirting with the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, said sources in the group.

PTI sources said that the party had tried to negotiate with Nakai, but talks had failed because he had refused to resign from his National Assembly seat. Nakai was not available for comment.

An official press release from the PM’s media office said that Nakai and Jabbar had called on Gilani and voiced appreciation for the government’s response to the NATO strikes in which dozens of Pakistani soldiers were killed.

The parliamentarians also appreciated the PM’s meeting with PPP MPAs at Governor’s House on Saturday, said the press release, where he had instructed the ministers for water and power and petroleum, as well as the heads of the Benazir Income Support Programme and Pakistan Baitul Maal, to make themselves available in Lahore every month to address the problems of the people.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2011.