After denting the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) in the Punjab Assembly beyond retrieval, the PML-Nawaz is eying to nibble at its strength of seventy plus MPs in order to incapacitate this party altogether. “I see the pattern of the Punjab assembly being repeated in the Senate as well as the National Assembly very shortly because a majority of PML-Q lawmakers wants to support us without any prodding from us,” a senior PML-N leader told this correspondent. He said the change of PML-Q parliamentary leader in Punjab assembly would happen any time as the majority has shown a lack of confidence in Chaudhry Zaheeruddin through a motion submitted to the provincial speaker. However, a PML-Q leader said that the PML-N's effort to split the PML-Q MPs from the party was nothing but an immoral practice of blatantly promoting horse-trading and floor-crossing. “We are under attack with vengeance,” he said and added that his party's MPs were being coerced into becoming turncoats. The PML-N feels that a small minority from amongst the seventy plus MPs would remain with the PML-Q and that too on getting firm promises of patronage from the federal ruling party. It believes that hardly any Punjab or federal lawmaker wished to stand with the PML-Q and be counted as everyone knew that this party has no future. Another PML-N leader would not presently say so but what his party aimed to declare after weaning away a majority of the federal legislators of the PML-Q was that it was now the single largest party in the National Assembly compared to the PPP, which has 120 plus seats, but despite this, it was not staking a claim to the federal government. As against the PML-Q's claim, the PML-N leader said that whoever was abandoning the PML-Q because of its policies wanted “unification” with the PML-N and that was why they preferred to be called as unification groups. He said the PML-Q's existence has now no justification whatsoever because it has outlived its utility. It was midwifed by the dictator to get props for his rule, and since he is gone, it also has no good reason to be on the surface, he said. However, the Chaudhrys of Gujrat (PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi) are holding ground, and Elahi aggressively continues to attack the Sharif brothers for sponsoring and encouraging desertions in his party. He recently said that the turncoat manufacturing factory has been set up at Sharifs' Raiwind estate. The PML-N leader said that when his party would secure the support of the sufficient number of the PML-Q senators, it would move to have its nominees declared as leader of the opposition in place of Wasim Sajjad, who has been given this office. He said that a handful of Punjab and federal lawmakers, who would stand with the PML-Q at the end of the day, would also not have any significant weight or voice. The bitterness between the PML-N and PML-Q intensified during the 35-day governor's rule in Punjab although it had also created an opportunity to bury the hatchet by both. The PML-N leader said that any PML-Q lawmaker, now determining to return to his party, repenting his past decision, would be taking the correct decision.
