To reduce tensions with the PPP, PM Shehbaz calls in senior party officials.

Senior party officials have been gathered by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to discuss efforts to reach a ceasefire between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Sources claim that the topic of discussion will be the escalating political tensions between Sindh and Punjab.

Senior PML-N leaders will apprise the prime minister of the PPP’s concerns and provide a briefing on the party’s recent withdrawal from the National Assembly.

To deliver a message from President Asif Ali Zardari, Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi is expected to meet with Prime Minister Shehbaz today. According to sources, President Zardari has given Naqvi the responsibility of reducing the escalating political tension between the PML-N and the PPP.

At their meeting at Bilawal House in Karachi the day before, Naqvi and President Zardari talked about the current political climate and the conflicts between the governments of Sindh and Punjab. The President gave Naqvi instructions to contribute to defusing the crisis.

According to reports, the conflict started over how to distribute relief to flood victims. The PML-N-led Punjab administration has rejected the PPP-led Sindh government’s insistence that aid be given through the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

Since then, the topic has been the subject of ongoing press conferences in which ministers from the two provincial administrations have criticized one another.