ISLAMABAD: PDM formally called a meeting of the heads of all opposition parties on Tuesday (today) without inviting the PPP to it.Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president Shehbaz Sharif on Monday hosted a dinner reception for all mainstream opposition parties.

The effort apparently aimed at bringing the Pakistan Peoples Party back to the multiparty alliance remained ineffective as PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari did not attend the dinner though senior leaders of his party did.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari, who returned to the country from the UAE last night and did not take part in the event, sent a three-member delegation of the party comprising two former prime ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf and Sherry Rehman to the dinner.

Similarly, PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz was reportedly in the federal capital on Monday, but she abstained from attening the dinner reception. Also PDM chairman and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman did not attend the event.

Besides, the ANP that had quit the PDM months ago was represented by Amir Haider Khan Hoti at the dinner, which was held at a local hotel.

No press talk was held after the dinner, which was quite unusual, as after all such meetings held in the part, opposition leaders talked to the media to give details of their interaction.

When contacted, PML-N Information Secretary Marriyum Aurganzeb said it was only a dinner and no formal meeting took place. However, she confirmed that Mr Sharif urged all opposition parties to resist all government moves that caused ‘unprecedented’ inflation, joblessness and poverty in the country.

She said she came to know that Mr Bilawal, who was in the UAE, could not return to Pakistan on a normal flight and thus he returned in a special plane of Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah. “As he arrived in Karachi in the evening, therefore it was quite impossible for him to attend the event,” she reasoned.

In a TV programme, PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal said in the meeting it was agreed that the joint opposition would not allow the government to present anti-people budget and therefore all parties decided to resist any such move.

He, however, asserted that the PDM had not invited the PPP to the alliance meeting being held today (Tuesday), because the party was no more a member of the PDM. “The PPP itself opted to depart its ways from the PDM, then how it could have been invited to the meeting,” he argued.

Mr Ahsan said “it was good” that the PPP had sent its high-powered delegation to the dinner, but he would be happier “if Mr Bilawal had attended the event”.

PPP leader Farhatullah Babar said the meeting had broken the ice and provided a platform to the opposition leaders to get together and speak to one another. He also said it was not PDM’s meeting and therefore the PDM issue did not come up for discussion at the event.