ISLAMABAD - With the growing popularity of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf in the country, the PML-Q has also to suffer a lot despite the fact that it is a coalition partner of PPP-led governments at the Centre as well as in the provinces.
After the first alarming and successful show by PTI in Lahore, a number of PML-Q members, who had been the members of Federal Cabinet during the then Musharraf regime, joined PTI.  These leaders include former Minister for Information Technology Sardar Awais Leghari, former Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture Sikandar Bosan, former Federal Minister Ishaq Khakwani, Senator Jamal Leghari and former District Nazim Chakwal Sardar Ghulam Abbas and number of other political figures.
Commenting on this switching of PML-Q leaders, a senior member of PML-Q who is also a sitting Minister of State Sheikh Waqas Akram when contacted, said that number of the members who have quit the party were those who were defeated in the last general elections. Talking about Jahangir Tareen, he said that he had already quit PML-Q.
He said that only two elected members of the party who are Leghari brothers have switched over to PTI.  He said that the leadership of PML-Q has struggled a lot for Awais Leghari when he was contesting by-elections from his father’s constituency. It is pertinent to mention here that PML-Q was first divided when Senator Salim Saifullah Khan had announced PML-Q (Likeminded) with a number of senior leaders like Khurshid Kasuri, Hamid Nasir Chattha, Kashmala Tariq, Humayun Akhtar Khan and others.
While the Chaudhrys of Gujrat had to face another political jerk when number of their MPAs from Punjab Assembly formed a unification bloc and finally helped out their real rivals PML-N to form the provincial government without PPP support. Later, when PML-Q leadership joined hands with PPP to strengthen it in the Centre, once again a number of its members led by Senator Tariq Azeem announced their own group and preferred to sit on Opposition benches despite the fact that Q League has become the coalition partner at the Centre.  Marvi Memon also protested against the alliance with PPP and resigned as MNA.
Similarly, the PML-Q (LM) has also now started splitting on their party head’s decision to make an alliance with PML-N as number of Likeminded leaders have concerns on this proposed alliance while Khurshid Kasuri, another senior member of Likeminded, has recently joined PTI. However, the Likeminded leadership seems to be quite optimistic and have recently called on Nawaz Sharif after which he had hinted to make a platform on which all the Leagues and religio-political parties would be gather. On the other hand, the leadership of PML-Q is nowadays playing an important role to bridge the gap between PPP leadership and military establishment that was widened after the memogate scandal.