The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) decided not to invite to Wednesday's federal cabinet meeting the PML-N's four restored ministers after its refusal to allow Ishaq Dar and Khawaja Asif to resume their cabinet positions. For this reason, PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari asked Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani not to permit PML-N Ministers including Ahsan Iqbal, Rana Tanvir, Khawaja Saad Rafiq and Sardar Mehtab to be in the cabinet meeting, an informed source told Saudi Gazette on Friday. “The PPP wants the PML-N to be fully involved and on board in matters of governance so that it also shares the fallout of the poor economic conditions,” one of the PML-N ministers said. However, both major ruling coalition partners play down their disagreement over PML-N federal ministers' absence from the first cabinet meeting, held after the two sides had jointly unfolded their plan to impeach President Pervez Musharraf. Information Minister Sherry Rehman said that they wanted all the nine PML-N ministers to come back immediately. This has been the PPP's stand. She said none of the PML-N ministers has so far returned to the cabinet, adding that four of them, who were speculated to have re-joined, did not attend Wednesday?s cabinet meeting because of their own party engagements. Underplaying the PPP-PML-N differences over the question of resumption of cabinet duties by some or all the PML-N ministers, Sherry Rehman said that the PML-N representatives in the joint committee that was preparing the charge sheet against Musharraf were making massive contributions. Ahsan Iqbal said that the PPP had stopped them from attending the cabinet meeting, arguing that all of his party nominees should come back in the cabinet. According to the source, Zardari has told the PML-N that since it had committed to allow Dar and Asif to resume their cabinet assignments, they had not done so. He wants the prompt return of all the nine PML-N nominees in the cabinet, which they had quit after the deposed judges were not restored as per the Murree declaration. However, it was worked out between the two parties after they reached an agreement on Musharraf?s impeachment to be instantly followed by the reinstatement of the sacked judges that all the PML-N ministers would re-join the federal cabinet. __
