Shahid Khaqan Abbasi invites PTI Karachi leader to join PML-N

• The invitation was given to PTI leader during the PML-N's electoral campaign for NA 249 by-elections by senior party leaders.
• Muzaffar Ali Shujra is a senior politician from Karachi who had joined the ruling PTI in 2018.
• Abbasi also meets Bilawal, asks for support in the by-election. 

KARACHI: The PML-N has invited PTI leader Haji Muzaffar Ali Shujra from Karachi to join its ranks, Geo News reported Saturday.

A delegation of senior PML-N leaders comprising former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, ex-minister Miftah Ismail and others met Shujra and offered him to join the party, sources privy to the development said.

Muzaffar Ali Shujra is a senior politician from Karachi who had joined the ruling PTI in 2018.

Read more: PTI lawmaker Malik Shehzad Awan steps down after being sidelined for NA-249 ticket

"I am impressed with the long struggle of Imran Khan against corruption," he had said while announcing his decision to switch his loyalties to Imran Khan’s party.

Shujra had served in the PPP Karachi chapter and was a minister in the Sindh cabinet from 2003 to 2018.

Abbasi was in Karachi to inaugurate the party's election office for the NA 249 by-polls in Karachi from where Miftah Ismail is contesting on PML-aN's ticket.

Separately, Abbasi also met PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to seek his support for the PML-N candidate for NA-249. 

According to a statement issued by the PPP, Abbasi arrived at Bilawal House Karachi with a delegation of PML-N leaders to discuss political matters. 

Bilawal told Abbasi that he will consult his party's leadership and respond to the PML-N's request accordingly. 

The PPP and the PML-N have recently found themselves at a crossroads over the matter of resignations from the legislative assemblies as a measure to force the government to capitulate. 

The PPP has strongly opposed the proposal, endorsed by nine of the 10 members of the Pakistan Democratic Movement, but said it will reconvene a meeting of its top leadership to ponder the matter. 

PTI MPA announces he is quitting Sindh Assembly

Separately, the PTI had suffered a setback on Friday when Malik Shehzad Awan submitted his resignation after the party snubbed him when awarding the ticket for the NA-249 constituency.

Awan, a PTI lawmaker in the Sindh Assembly from PS 116, stepped down after submitting his resignation to Opposition leader Haleem Adil Sheikh.

He said Amjad Khan Afridi — the ruling party's candidate for NA-249, which had fallen vacant after the previously-elected Faisal Vawda stepped down following his Senate victory — was "unpopular in the constituency".

"I have to win this seat no matter what so I can gift it to Prime Minister Imran Khan," Awan said. "That's why I've submitted my resignation."

According to the polling schedule for the NA-249 constituency, issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan earlier, voting would take place on April 29, 2021.