ISLAMABAD - After failing to rope in any major political party into an alliance, the leadership of both the All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) are now directing serious effort to land in next general elections hands in hands.

Sources in the PML-Q informed The Nation that previously party chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had made some serious efforts to bring all the factions of the Pakistan Muslim League, sans the ruling PML-N, at one platform but he could not succeed due to the sharp differences between the heads of various factions, who were not even ready to sit with their opponents what to speak of unification of these factions.

Shujaat Hussain’s efforts to get into some sort of alliance with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had also failed to yield any positive result as the latter was not interested in forming an alliance with any political party, particularly in the Punjab where they considered that the PTI would gain where ruling the PML-N would lose ground.

Sources in the APML said that so far the efforts made by the party chief, Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf to win over the splinter groups of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement as well as Sindh-centric nationalist parties had badly failed, so he was desperate to form some sort of alliance with like-minded factions of Muslim leagues so that they could jointly win some seats of the national and provincial legislatures.

Sources aware of the fresh move on the part of the APML leadership informed The Nation that now the party was focusing on forming alliance with the PML-Q, the PML-F and some nationalist parties from Sindh provided they would agree to join the alliance to leave some impact in the upcoming general elections, particularly in Sindh.

Political analysts were of the view that the PML-F was having some strongholds in interior Sindh and the party chief Pir Sighbatullah Rashidi, the sitting Pir Pagaro, knew it well that they alone could not dent the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the province so they would be interested in an alliance with nationalist parties to come up with some sizeable representation in the provincial legislature.

Sources said that PML-Q chief Shujaat Hussain was also mainly interested in entering into some sort of adjustment with the PTI in Punjab which had acquired the position of second most popular party in the province after the ruling PML-N.

But as the PTI leadership seemed not inclined to form an alliance or even some electoral adjustment with the PML-Q so the Chaudhrys from Gujrat were left with no choice but to engage some other smaller parties to form an alliance against the government.

Sources in the APML informed The Nation that initially they along with the PML-Q would be launching a movement against the ruling PML-N soon after Eid and in due course of time they would be working on the formation of an alliance and would try to woo as many smaller parties as they can to transform the alliance into a formidable force.

Some insiders in the APML said that one of the major hurdle coming in the way of the future alliance was the reluctance of some of the main stakeholders in entering into some sort of agreement because of the uncertain political situation in the country, which according to them was greatly hinging on the decision of the Panama leaks inquiry and subsequent verdict of the apex court.

In case Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif faced some real blow in the case the situation would altogether be different from the one if he get a clean chit from the apex court in the Panama leaks case.

So the political players are in a state of wait and watch position and would order their moves on the political chessboard in the light of the Panama leaks case final verdict.