President Pakistan Muslim League, Ch. Shujaat Hussain and Senior Federal Minister, Ch. Pervez Elahi meeting with Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani at PM House on Sunday. – Photo by APP
Mr Gilani needed to act effectively to satisfy his new allies particularly because he will need their support in the lower house where PML-N is planning an all-out assault on the Osama issue; with a demand for him and President Asif Ali Zardari to accept responsibility for the Abbottabad fiasco and resign.
At the request of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, Mr Gilani had to change the portfolio of Q-League’s Riaz Hussain Pirzada from minorities’ affairs to health.
At a meeting with the prime minister, Pakistan Muslim League-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Senior Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi took up grievances of the newly-inducted ministers from their party and urged him to immediately address them.
The Chaudhrys are facing a difficult situation because some of the ministers who are unhappy with their ‘lowly’ portfolios have threatened a rebellion if they are not given high-profile ministries.
There is a feeling in the PML-Q ranks that the PPP has given them the ministries which are to be devolved to the provinces under the 18th Amendment by the end of next month.
An official announcement said the prime minister also changed the name of the ministry of minorities’ affairs to interfaith harmony. This portfolio, according to government sources, is also expected to be given to a PML-Q nominee.
It is not clear which portfolio will now be allotted to Chaudhry Anwar Ali Cheema who has taken oath as federal minister for health.
Earlier in the day, Minister for Production and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa PML-Q chief Amir Muqam threatened to resign from the cabinet and set a one-week deadline for the Chaudhrys to meet his demands.
“I will quit the ministry if Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain does not meet the demands of the party workers from the province,” he said at a meeting of members of the PML-Q general council from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Mr Muqam is among the seven PML-Q men who were administered oath by President Asif Ali Zardari as federal ministers. He is now asking the leadership of his party to call a meeting of the central executive committee to get approval of the decision to join the ruling coalition. The same demand has been made by some PML-Q dissidents who have criticised the Chaudhrys for taking the decision in haste without consulting party workers and office-bearers.
Mr Muqam, who is apparently unhappy over bifurcation of the ministry of industries and production, also said the PML-Q would not sit with the Awami National Party (ANP) in the provincial assembly. He, however, has no objection to sitting with the same party at the centre.
He urged the PML-Q leadership to put pressure on the PPP to explain its position on the May 2 US military operation in Abbottabad.
The US forces carried out the operation hours after the PPP and the PML-Q agreed on a power-sharing formula under which 14 new ministers took oath the following day despite the fact that the nation was in shock over the silence of the civilian and military leaders over the Abbottabad incident.
At the regional party meeting, some speakers made harsh remarks against the Chaudhrys and accused them of getting positions in the government for their relatives and favourites.
Sources in the PML-Q said a group of party dissidents, headed by the most vocal opposition MNA Marvi Memon and Awais Leghari, was set to submit an application to the speaker of the National Assembly seeking allocation of their seats on the opposition benches.
Five dissident senators, besides members of the breakaway Likeminded faction of the PML-Q, have already submitted an application to the Senate chairman for separate seats and refused to sit on the treasury benches.
In another development, the prime minister appointed Privatisation Minister Ghaus Bakhsh Maher as Chairman of the Privatisation Commission.
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