Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has tasked Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar to reach out to major political parties in Sindh including Pakistan Peoples' Party and Muttahida Qaumi Movement and evolve a consensus on the next Governor of the province.
Dar held a detailed meeting with the Chief Minister Sindh on Friday and has also spoken to Farooq Sattar on the phone on the matter. He has reportedly promised Sattar that he would arrange his meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the latter's return from Davos during which he (Sattar) can discuss the possible contenders for the post of Sindh Governor.
Talking to Business Recorder, MQM Senator Nasreen Jalil said that her party had requested a meeting with the PML-N for consultation on appointment of the new governor; this would send the message that "Punjab's party has been taking people of other provinces into confidence before making appointments on prized slots like the governor," she added.
She said that her party had finalised a name for the position and would share it with the government once the latter approached them for formal negotiations. She, however, declined to reveal the identity of her party's potential candidate.
PML-N has been struggling to appoint one of its loyalists as the governor but wants to present it as a "consensus and neutral candidate," a close aide of the ruling party told Business Recorder on Friday.
The government had been pushing three potential candidates namely Senator Mushahidullah Khan, Chairman Board of Investment Miftah Ismail and a Karachi-based businessman Khawaja Qutabuddin for the coveted slot, the source said.
The source said Ishaq Dar had already shared the names of the potential candidates with Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah and MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar, but the final decision would be taken by the Prime Minister.
Among the three contestants, the source said, Khawaja Qutabuddin might be the hot favourite of the MQM and PPP as he was not an active politician and held no office in the PML-N's Sindh chapter.
The source said President Mamnoon Hussain had also been supporting Qutabuddin for the position, but some top leaders of the ruling party had expressed their reservations over his nomination.
"Khawaja Qutabuddin is an honest person, but he left the PML-N after General Musharraf's coup in 1999. Therefore, his chances for the appointment are bleak," one senior PML-N leader said.
"The government's favoured candidate is Senator Mushahidullah Khan but the establishment may express some reservations over his appointment," he said.
The source, however, also claimed that Ishaq Dar would consult the establishment as well before finalising any candidate for the position because the role of the Sindh governor was important in the wake of ongoing Rangers' operation against terrorists in the metropolitan city.
Senator Mushahidullah Khan resigned in August 2015 from the post of Federal Minister for Climate Change a day after BBC Urdu published his interview in which he alleged that former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam Abbasi had tried to stage a coup during 2014 sit-ins by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the Pakistan Awami Tehreek.
The MQM and PPP had expressed their reservations publicly when the federal government appointed ailing former justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui in November 2016 as governor and complained that the Prime Minister did not take them into confidence. The position of Governor Sindh fell vacant after Siddiqui passed away on January 11, 2017 in Karachi.
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