• Sarwar announces decision after meeting Chaudhry Shujaat.
• “I was invited to join PML-Q,” he says.
• He says his first priority is to strengthen the party.

Almost a year after his ceremonial removal as Punjab governor by his former party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar Sunday announced joining the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).

Sarwar, who announced his inclusion after his meeting with the party’s supremo Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, was removed from his position just days ahead of Khan’s ouster following a vote of no-confidence in April last year.

Earlier this year, local sources shared that he was offered to join Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and PML-Q, as the battle for the ‘Punjab throne’ intensified during the assembly dissolution episode in January.

The sources privy to the matter said that Chaudhry Shujaat met the former PTI leader twice back then and offered him to join his party.

According to local media, the former governor had decided to join the PML-Q two days ago; however, the official announcement about him joining the party was to be made today.

“I was invited to join the Pakistan Muslim League,” the politician said during a presser adding that his first priority would be to “strengthen the party”.

Expressing his dissatisfaction with the current state of political affairs in the country, Sarwar said: “Politicians are not willing to sit together in the most difficult of situations.”

He added that politicians work for power when they are in the Opposition; however, no one thinks about what they must do after arriving in the office.

Sharing his views about the Pakistan Democratic Movement-led government in Islamabad, the former Punjab governor said that PDM will have to take strong measures economically.

Sarwar, when speaking about his accomplishments during his tenure in the governor’s house, said he appointed the university’s vice-chancellor on merit.

After his removal from the governor’s office last year, the politician berated his former party’s leadership slamming its “foreign conspiracy” narrative.

However, he vowed to stand behind Khan despite reservations.

“On the one hand, there was the prime minister and on the other, it was the entire PTI. Bribery has reached grassroot levels, but we vowed to stand with Khan,” he added.