LAHORE - The PML-Q top leadership, which is facing the dilemma of political isolation for quite some time, is making desperate efforts for its resurgence under Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) without ignoring reservations of the party’s second-line leaders.  The PML-Q high command, according to some of its leaders, is following a suicidal policy by strengthening the impression that it needs the wings of Dr Qadri’s PAT for its resurgence in the political arena.
Some second-line PML-Q leaders, expressing their reservations over the attempts of the party’s top leadership for its revival, told The Nation on Thursday the growing impression that PML-Q was becoming an orphan child was hurting the remaining loyalists because of the high command’s dependence on Dr Qadri’s PAT.
They have suggested that the party’s top leadership should have formed a PML-Q-led political alliance instead of following Dr Qadri’s revolution.  They have also proposed that the top leadership of the party which has remained a coalition partner of MQM should approach them, Sunni Ittehad Council and others for launching its own alliance.
The PML-Q second-line leaders observed: “We are looking like bystanders in the show of PAT, so the party’s top leadership needs serious brainstorming to maintain its identity which has come under the influence of Dr Qadri since his arrival in Lahore.
They added the party supporters seemed seriously demoralised when the provincial party president cleared the way for the PAT chief at Minhaj Secretariat while accompanying him after his arrival in the provincial capital.  The Punjab PML-Q president was once a dynamic chief minister of the province and former deputy prime minister of the country, so his remaining loyalists became deeply perturbed when they watched their leader clearing the way for a leader who had not a single seat in the Parliament.
They opined that Thursday’s press conference at the Minhaj Secretariat also portrayed the position of PML-Q as a bystander in the show of PAT.  The PML-Q second-line leaders were of the opinion that veteran political leaders like Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi’s following a non-political breed was not understandable.  It is worth mentioning that the PML-Q top leadership, during a meeting with Dr Qadri along with Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had made an effort to get the steering of the upcoming anti-government drive by convincing the PAT chief that they should be assigned complete responsibility of organising the campaign and Qadri should become patron-in-chief of the drive. But Qadri smartly refused any such offer of the PML-Q top leadership.
Sheikh Rashid, after failing to convince the PAT and PTI commanders for launching a joint anti-government drive, distanced himself from PAT for the time being by saying that he is practically an ally of Imran Khan.