LAHORE: Denying a secret deal with People’s Party, Muslim League-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has said the appointment of a party colleague as chairman of Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (Erra) has not been made in return for political cooperation.

Talking to journalists here on Tuesday at the Qul of mother of Mushahid Husain Sayed, he said he did not believe in deals signed in the darkness of the night. “Whenever we’ll strike a deal, it will be a deed that may be read by everyone.”

All decisions, he said, would be taken after consulting party elders.

Hamid Yar Hiraj of the PML-Q has recently been appointed as the Erra chief.

Chaudhry Shujaat held the government responsible for a delay in framing an accountability law.

He said former president Pervez Musharraf should respond to a questionnaire sent to him by the Federal Investigation Agency in connection with the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. “I’ve seen the questions and there is nothing wrong in replying to them, although it will lead to more questions (complications).”

Replying to a question, he said former chief minister Pervaiz Elahi would give a strong reply if he was sent a questionnaire. Mr Elahi is one of the three persons named by Ms Bhutto as her likely assassins in an email to a journalist.

Declining to own the process initiated by former prime minister Zafarullah Jamali for unification of all factions of the League, he said he could comment on the reports only after “these would come on the ground. So far these are in the skies.”

He said his party was holding consultations on the issue of reformed general sales tax.

Meanwhile, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif telephoned Mr Mushahid Sayed from Singapore to offer condolences over the death of his mother.