PPP CEC to decide on political alliance: Murad Ali Shah

KARCHI: Former Sindh chief minister Murad Ali Shah on Saturday asserted that Central Executive Committee (CEC) of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) would decide on allying with a political party to form government in Centre, ARY News reported.

Talking exclusively to ARY News, Murad Ali Shah said that Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto will take opinion on forging an alliance from the Central Executive Committee.

In response to a question, the PPP leader said they were hoping to secure eight to 12 National Assembly (NA) seats from Karachi, dubbing MQM-P’s victory a ‘surprise’.

“We lost the provincial assembly seats with a very small margin,” he said, saying that they would also hoping to win the Qadir Mandokhail’s seat.

Casting doubt over MQM-P’s victory, he said the PPP begged the party to contest local government elections. “But, MQM-P was of the view that they don’t even have polling agents”, he claimed.

Murad noted that PPP does not need MQM-P at provincial level, but the circumstances were different matter in the Centre. Moreover, he said that PML-N and MQM cannot form government even together.

In a speech on Friday evening, PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif announced that he had tasked his brother, former PM Shehbaz Sharif, to reach out to major parties such as PPP, MQM-P and others, to form an alliance.

In this vein, Shehbaz Sharif met with PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari and his son, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, at the residence of Punjab caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi.

The results of 257 out of the total 265 National Assembly constituencies where elections were held had been announced, which showed the independent candidates in the lead with 102 seats overall. The PML-N and PPP had won 73 and 54 seats, respectively, and were set to bag most of the 70 reserved seats for women and non-Muslims in the house.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement had bagged 17 seats, while the PML-Q had three. The JUI-F and Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (IPP) had secured three and two seats, respectively. MWM and BNP had clinched one seat each.