QUETTA, Sept 14: Baloch nationalist leader Sardar Ataullah Mengal has said his proposed nomination for the post of caretaker prime minister by the PML-N leadership was a joke.

Talking to Dawn by phone on Friday from his hometown Wadh, he said he didn’t see the move as a serious one. If he accepted the offer his sons would take him to a mental hospital.

Sardar Mengal said the proposal betrayed the casual attitude of the powers that be to the Balochistan crisis, dismissing it as flippant.

Mr Mengal, who was the first elected chief minister of Balochistan, said the people behind the proposal had first gone to Sardar Akhtar Mengal with their proposal. But Akhtar Mengal said his father would never accept the PML-N proposal.