ISLAMABAD: With former Housing Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat opting not to join Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf’s cabinet, all other former PML-Q ministers will take oath tomorrow (Monday).
In all seven ministers, seven ministers of state and four advisers will join the Raja cabinet, and President Asif Ali Zardari will administer oath to them.
“Our ministers will take oath on Monday,” PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain confirmed to The News on Saturday. However, Faisal Saleh Hayat will not join the cabinet on the basis of the ‘principled position’ he took against alleged corruption and corrupt practices in the case of rental power projects when Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was water and power minister.
“I conveyed my decision to the party leadership, which has accepted my plea that it is my personal decision not to join Raja’s cabinet,” Faisal Saleh Hayat told The News.
Several key PML-Q leaders appreciated Faisal for his decision not to join the cabinet, though he will continue to follow the policies and decisions of the party leadership as a member of the National Assembly.
“I followed the decision of the party to support Raja Pervaiz Ashraf in his election to the office of prime minister,” said Faisal: “but joining or not joining the cabinet is his personal decision and the party has no objection to it”.
Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, who is expected to be tipped as deputy prime minister once legal formalities are completed, took oath as a senior minister on Friday. He was alone to represent the PML-Q in a bid to express the party’s solidarity and unity with the PPP.
In another development, the PML-Q is likely to give the name of Jam Yousuf for the Housing Ministry, though the government is working on a plan to create another ministry by bifurcating housing and works so that there would be a full seven-member strength of the PML-Q in the cabinet.
It is almost certain that Ch Wajahat Husain, Ali Cheema, Riaz Pirzada, Jam Yousuf and one more PML-Q MNA will take oath as ministers. Shah Jehan Yousuf, Raza Hiraj, Kh Shahzad, Bahadur Khan Sehr, Akram Masih Gill and Shaikh Waqas will be ministers of state with Ahmed Yar Hiraj, Qasim Shah, Raja Basharat and Mustafa Khokhar to be appointed as advisers.
The PML-Q held its lengthy deliberations on political developments in a meeting chaired by Ch Shujaat at his residence. The meeting discussed a host of decisions and renewed its stance of supporting the government and working with the PPP in an effort to give relief to the people.