ISLAMABAD: Patch-up between the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) in the Punjab has dashed the hopes of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) that its turncoats would return to its fold.

However, senior PML-Q leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi is optimistic that his party's turncoats would soon change their mind and shun defection to avoid unseating over floor crossing.

"A predominant majority of our MPAs, who have temporarily switched sides, have already assured us that they would not remain with the PML-N and would come back to their original party," he told The News.

Elahi said most of the nearly a dozen-and-a-half MPAs, who were apparently with the PML-N, were in touch with the PML-Q leadership. He said the PML-Q had done its homework to file disqualification references against those MPAs who, despite counselling by the party, kept themselves associated with the PML-N against its clear-cut policy and guidelines.

The PML-Q leader was satisfied over the fact that the PML-N's expectations that the party would evaporate in thin air because of its efforts had failed to materialise. He said the party fully stood behind its leadership.

Pervaiz said none of the two main parliamentary parties in the Punjab Assembly could rule the Punjab single-handedly.

The PPP-PML-N patch-up in the Punjab reached last week for whatever reason has considerable whittled down the great relevance and significance that the PML-Q has assumed because of the confrontation between the two major parliamentary parties. It suddenly landed in this lucrative position from wilderness in which the outcome of the Feb 18 general elections had thrown it.

However, the recent apparent PPP-PML-N accord and harmony has again pushed the PML-Q into a relatively inconsequential and trivial setting. If the PPP does not destabilise the Punjab government and not force it to seek a fresh vote of confidence, the PML-Q will not regain any great importance and its defectors will not have as much weight for the chief minister as they will if he is compelled to prove his majority on the floor of the Punjab Assembly.

PML-Q turncoats, who are standing with Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, are very comfortable because they are enjoying the spoils of office. Their genuine demands are being met by the provincial government and their constituencies are being looked after well. But, on the other hand, PML-Q defectors, who have aligned themselves with the PPP, are unlikely to be as much contended and relaxed because they are dependent on those who don't have much powers and clout in the province.

Elahi told this correspondent he had no doubt that barring a couple of exceptions, no PML-Q MPA would vote for Shahbaz Sharif knowing that any such act would lead to his disqualification.

"We have a solid support of 63 MPAs," the PML-Q leader said, adding under the Constitution no MPA was allowed to go against his/her party's policy during voting on a confidence resolution or no-trust motion against the chief minister or a money bill.

"And if he does so, he will lose his seat on the recommendation of the head of his parliamentary party." He said it was also advisable for the PML-Q MPAs who have committed the mistake of temporarily defecting from the party to return so as to end the chances of legal action.