PDM to hold steering committee meeting without PPP, ANP on April 26

• PDM will hold its next steering committee meeting on April 26 without PPP and ANP in Islamabad.
  
• PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has convened an important meeting at his residence Monday evening.
  
• The meeting will discuss the anti-government movement without PPP and ANP and will also consider the long march after Eidul Fitr.
  

Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) will hold its next steering committee meeting on April 26 without two major Opposition parties PPP and ANP in Islamabad, Geo News reported on Friday.

PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has convened an important meeting at his residence Monday evening.

Read more: PPP, ANP leaders removed from PDM WhatsApp group

According to sources, the meeting will discuss the overall political situation in the country and the next course of action.

Sources have confirmed that PPP and ANP have not been invited.

The meeting will discuss the anti-government movement without PPP and ANP and will also consider the long march after Eidul Fitr, the sources added.

PPP resigns from the PDM

On April 11, the PPP had parted ways with the PDM after the latter served it a show-cause notice.

PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari announced that the party's Central Executive Committee (CEC) had called upon its members to resign from all positions of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).

Read more: Fazl to make decision over PPP's resignation from PDM: Maryam

He had said the CEC had come to the conclusion that resignations from the national and provincial assemblies should be "like an atom bomb".

Bilawal said the PPP's stance that the Opposition should "not abandon the Parliament and the Senate battleground" had been vindicated.

He said if the PPP had listened to other political parties in the Opposition and boycotted the Senate elections and by-elections, then it would have harmed democracy.

Opposition split

The split in the Opposition alliance took a formal shape as the component parties of the PDM decided to form a new bloc in the Senate, excluding PPP and ANP.

The PDM had issued show-cause notices to PPP and ANP for violating its consensus decision and getting the support of the ruling alliance for the election of their candidate as the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.

The senate dispute

The major rift among the Opposition parties emerged after a dispute in Senate elections. The PDM had decided last month that the PPP will get the slot of chairman Senate while the deputy chairman will go to JUI-F and the PML-N will get the office of the leader of Opposition.

Read more: PDM parties to form new bloc in Senate minus PPP, ANP

The PPP and JUI-F candidates for the two slots couldn’t succeed in the polls, as the presiding officer discarded seven votes of the PPP candidate Senator Yusuf Raza Gilani.

Subsequently, the PPP backed out of consensus understanding and opted to get the slot of the Opposition leader by roping in some members of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) party, which is part of the government.

The ANP stood by the PPP.