LAHORE, Sept 26: A traders’ convention held here on Tuesday night remained inconclusive on whether to launch their own party or not as participants decided to adopt a “wait and see” policy.

The dominance of Pakistan Muslim League-N in the central Punjab, particularly in the provincial metropolis, restrained the trading community from taking any bold initiative on the issue, said one of the participants.

“Seeing popularity of the PML-N in Lahore and adjacent districts, we decided to delay a formal announcement of launching our own political front and see what response a similar action by our counterparts in Multan get.”

He said the convention chose to first set its own constituency (trading community) right before accepting challenges from established political parties. It was decided to seek feedback from district office-bearers of the All-Pakistan Anjuman Tajiran (APAT) from across the country about the initiative already taken by Multan traders, he added.

A majority of the participants were of the opinion that progress on the direct political initiative should be made step by step gradually occupying the existing vacuum, he said.

An APAT office-bearer said they had sought 20 per cent representation in elected assemblies for middle-class traders both from the PPP and the PML-N around three months ago but none of them responded positively rather the N-League leadership even declined to give audience to their leaders.

“The lukewarm response has made us to rethink our policy of supporting the existing political parties and have a political face of our own.”

However, he said if the leaders failed to reach any decision of formal launching of the party, trade bodies at district level would be authorised to forge alliance in the light of their local ground realities. — Amjad Mahmood