LAHORE: After a twitter post from a senior government leader about more than a dozen legislators from Pakistan’s largest opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) having met with Prime Minister Imran Khan caused widespread panic among PML-N ranks on Saturday evening, that party’s leaders have said that any turncoats in the party will have to face the music.

Just days after opposition parties held an all-parties moot in a show of united strength against the government, Naeem ul Haque, special assistant to the prime minister, tweeted that 15 MPAs (members of provincial assembly) from the PML-N had been brought in by Punjab’s chief minister and met with the Prime Minister for an hour and a half at his Banigala home where they had “expressed full confidence” in the PTI leader.

Until Sunday evening, PML-N leaders were vehemently denying news about the Prime Minister’s meeting with its legislators, but photos released on social media allegedly of Saturday’s meeting, and sent to Arab News by sources within the PML-N have made the opposition party leaders change their tune. Visible in the photos, are PML-N MPAs Nishat Daha, Faisal Niazi, Jaleel Sharaqpuri and Maulana Ghayasuddin.

Former Prime Minister and senior member of the PML-N, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Arab News, “We have received the information and are probing it. If our legislators are found guilty of violating the (party) policy, an action will be taken against them.”

The PML-N has been threatening a large-scale protest movement to overthrow Khan’s party in the Punjab. The confirmation of two PML-N lawmakers Jaleel Sharaqpuri and Maulana Ghayasuddin who endorsed reports of a meeting with Khan on Saturday damages the party’s position and united front in the provincial assembly despite reports circulating for days about disgruntled members of the PML-N reaching out to government representatives.

“There are reports that 4 to 5 persons met IK (Imran Khan). We are probing the matter and if they are found guilty, they will have to face the music,” PML-N’s information secretary Azma Bukhari told Arab News on Monday. 

She added that the PML-N too could give a “befitting reply” to PTI in the Punjab Assembly by managing a forward bloc from the ruling party. 

“But we are showing patience and following democratic norms,” she said.

The PML-N denounced the 2018 general elections that unseated the government of Nawaz Sharif as rigged and accused the judiciary and the military of tipping the scales in Khan’s favor, a charge both vehemently deny.

A former PML-N leader from Gujranwala, Younas Ansari, who was also present at Saturday’s meeting in Banigala told Arab News, “I took 15 MPAs to CM Usman Buzadar and then PM Imran Khan because we must strengthen the hands of Khan at this moment.”

His younger brother Ashraf Ansari who is also an MPA from the PML-N told Arab News, “Some of the media outlets mentioned my name as a turncoat, but I clearly deny the information. I am part of PML-N.”

A PML-N insider and MPA who asked not to be named said, “I was also contacted by PML-Q leader Tariq Bashir Cheema for the meeting with IK (Imran Khan) but I refused. However, my seven or eight colleagues went there.”

Former federal minister Riaz Hussain Pirzada whose name was disclosed to the media as part of the forward bloc contradicted the information in a video message which was then tweeted by PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz Sharif who said the government’s attempts showed desperation and panic in their camp to cover up its “glaring failures.”