It is noteworthy that the PPP is doing everything to keep its ministers in the Punjab Cabinet, but it is not following the simple recourse of implementing the PML-Ns agenda. However, it seems that the deadline set by PML-N Quaid Mian Nawaz Sharif for it will not be met, and the committees of the two parties which met on Tuesday, could not override the decision of the PML-N to expel the PPP members from the Punjab Cabinet, as the PPP was not willing to implement the PML-Ns 10-point agenda. The agenda had apparently been accepted only to bring the PML-N to the point of supporting the PPP. It seems the point of PML-N support is not so much for the federal government, as for Punjab. The federal government, however, needed the PML-N as a counterweight to the MQM, for without the PML-N as a sort of back-up, the PPP central government had lost its majority without MQM support. Thus the present situation was allowed to continue, where the PML-N included the PPP in the Cabinet of the only province it governed, even though the PML-N also held the leadership of the opposition to the federal government the PPP headed. The PPP has pulled out all the stops in its opposition, and the Prime Minister has made a misstep in his address in Bahawalpur, where he hinted at the break-up of the Punjab by the formation of a Seraiki province. This statement has particular significance coming from a prime minister who himself belongs to the potential province and is doubly significant as coming from someone belonging to one claimant to capital status (Multan). The latter is willing for the province to cover the former state of Bahawalpur, which consists of the three districts of Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahimyar Khan. The PPP probably would like to see another province, thinking that it would mean that it would rule in the new province, but it has not given enough attention to the converse, that it would probably constantly lose in the left-over province. If Punjab is to be broken up, then Sindh itself has not just a Muhajir minority, but also a Seraiki one too. This is not to bring in the Seraiki minority in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in Dera Ismail Khan Division and the Hindko-speaking minority in Abbottabad division, or the Pashtun minority in Balochistan. No doubt, it would be a serious issue for the PPP if it were to lose its Cabinet seats in Punjab. Not only this would be the only province where it did not form part of the government, but would also bring on talk of a premature general election. However, this does not justify talk of splitting the province, especially when it does not have the necessary majorities, needed not just in Parliament but also in the concerned provincial assembly.