QUETTA, April 5: The Pakistan People's Party has formally invited former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali to join it after awarding a ticket to his younger brother, Mir Abdul Rehman Jamali, for a provincial assembly constituency (PB-26) of Jaffarabad.

The provincial president of the PPP, Mir Sadiq Ali Umrani, extended the invitation to Mr Jamali during a meeting with him in Jaffarabad on Monday while returning from Larkana after attending the death anniversary of late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

“I formally extended an invitation to Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali to join Pakistan People's Party,” Sadiq Umrani said here on Tuesday.

According to sources, Mr Jamali had not yet taken any decision in this regard.

Mr Jamali was elected to Balochistan Assembly in 1977 election on a PPP ticket and later severed as provincial minister for food and information in Nawab Mohammad Khan Barozai's cabinet till the PPP government's removal by military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq.

The PPP has awarded a ticket to Mir Abdul Rehman Jamali because he has joined the party and is contesting the by-election for PB-26, Jaffarabad-2, which fell vacant after the disqualifica-tion of Mir Zahoor Hussain Khosa for possessing a fake degree.

Mir Abdul Rehman Jamali lost the election in 2008 in his home consistency as a PML-Q candidate because Mir Changez Jamali, the son of late Mir Taj Mohammad Khan Jamali, was a candidate of PPP for the same seat, which had divided the Jamalis' vote bank and paved the way for Mir Zahoor Hussain Khosa's win.