'Support the joint candidates of PPP, MQM and PML-F in Senate elections or face the music' is the message PPP leadership has reportedly conveyed to Pakistan Muslim League-Likeminded (PML-L) Chief Arbab Ghulam Rahim on Wednesday. Well-placed sources in PPP told this scribe that very tough massage was conveyed to the self-exiled chief of PML-L by Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah on telephone.
"Khurshid Shah told Rahim that he should direct his party candidates to withdraw their nominations as PPP, MQM and PML-F want to get their candidates elected unopposed in the scheduled Senate elections," they added. Upon this, they said, Arbab Rahim asked Khurshid Shah to give a general seat to his party candidate Abdul Ghafar Qureshi.
Shah told him that PML-L had only five MPAs in Sindh Assembly and it could won a single seat so he must directed his party candidates to withdraw their candidatures and let the PPP, MQM and PML-F's candidates return unopposed. "When Arbab Rahim refused to oblige Shah, he warned him to be ready to face the music if Sindh goes for polling in the Senate elections," source claimed.
They said that the Speaker Sindh Assembly had not accepted the leave application of Arbab Rahim, which was pending in Assembly Secretariat, and if PML-L did not withdraw its candidates then Arbab Rahim could be de-seated for his continued absence from Assembly's proceeding.
It is to be mentioned here that PML-L Chief Arbab Ghulam Rahim is a sitting MPA but he has not attended Assembly session for the last three and half years. Four PML-L candidates including Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi (general), Yasmeen Farukh (women), Photomal Dileep (minorities) and Mangal Das Arwani (technocrats) are in the run in the upcoming Senate elections.
When Parliamentary Leader of PML-L in Sindh Assembly Abdul Razaq Rahimoon was contacted he said that Khurshid Ahmed Shah had contacted Arbab Rahim on Wednesday. "But there is no new instructions for us from PML-L chief regarding Senate polls and we are stick to our stance of contesting the polls," he added. To a question, he said he had submitted leave application of Arbab Rahim in Sindh Assembly, which has not yet been approved. "Earlier, all his leave applications were accepted and Arbab Rahim is drawing his salary as MPA from the day one," he added.