ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the PM on Industries and Production Mian Manzoor Wattoo, while talking informally to a group of media persons outside the Parliament House, said on Saturday that Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif would have to take a trust vote from the provincial assembly if the PPP withdrew its ministers from the provincial cabinet.

He was replying to the question if the PPP was considering the PML-N demand that after their withdrawal from the federal cabinet, the PPP should do the same in the Punjab and withdraw from the provincial government.

Wattoo played down the PML-Q forward bloc factor in the provincial assembly and said that it had no legal or constitutional standing.

"Therefore, may I say, we don't want to embarrass Mian Sahib," he asserted. "We are not going to withdraw from the Punjab government, as we want conciliation and a collective approach to resolve Pakistan's problems," he emphasised.

He noted that the PML-N had shown urgency in saying goodbye to the ruling coalition at the Centre, but the PPP was in no mood to part ways with the provincial government.

In a separate media chat, PML-N central leader Khawaja Asif said that they wished good luck to the newly-elected president, hoping there would be more political stability in the weeks and months to come.

When his attention was drawn to some media reports that the PPP might push for a change in the Punjab government at some stage, he warned that if someone tried to destabilise the provincial government, it would be resisted with full force and defeated.

Meanwhile, PPP’s central leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim, talking to journalists, said that he was for the repeal of 58(2)b and the 17th Amendment. He said that after the big success in the presidential election, the government should focus on three major fronts: the poor law and order, the price hike and load-shedding, as people were weary of these burning issues.