Shujaat willing to accept Pir as leader

Staff Report

KARACHI: Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said on Wednesday that if he was unacceptable to Pir Pagaro as leader of the Pakistan Muslim League, he was ready to accept the Pir as head of the ruling party.

“We want to foil efforts aimed at creating differences within the Muslim League,” he told journalists at the Sindh Muslim League House, where he inaugurated computer section. “Pir Pagaro is already in the Muslim league and he does not need to rejoin it,” he said, trying to dismiss the impression of differences with the Functional leader.

Mr Shujaat said some raised slogans against Pir Pagaro in front of Pir Pagaro’s Karachi residence, Kingri House, which is on the way to the Sindh Muslim League House from the airport, because the leader of the Functional group of the Muslim had been refusing to meet him. The Pir is in Karachi these days. “But I told Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim, ‘Let us meet Mr Pagaro now,’ ” he said. Dr Rahim is provincial president of the PML.

He said he followed the conciliatory advice of his late father, assassinated Muslim League politician Chaudhry Zahoor Illahi who was a close lieutenant of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. His father taught him “to ignore and cooperate,” he said.

He said he had buried last year’s differences and started the New Year with a pledge to reunify and strengthen the party.

Mr Shujaat said his reception at the airport proved his party was strong and active in Sindh. Speaking at a reception at the Chief Minister’s House, he quipped that the government did not cut a “deal” with the opposition parties but gave them “dheel” (latitude). He complained that this conciliatory policy was not reciprocated.

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