ISLAMABAD -- Dissident leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) were bunkered down in meetings Tuesday after supporters of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif suspended them from the party, AFP reported.
Party officials said the discussions were being led by PML stalwart Mian Mohammad Azhar, the former governor of Punjab Province and one-time ally of the ousted prime minister.
He was one of four PML leaders representing the core of an anti-Sharif faction whose membership was suspended Monday after wild scenes at a party meeting here.
More than 100 stick-wielding PML members from the eastern city of Lahore, the capital of Punjab, stormed the party's headquarters shouting anti-Sharif slogans and disrupted a key meeting of the Central Working Committee (CWC).
The committee, which met later at a different venue, was due to agree to a plan to join the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) of opposition parties to present a unified front against military ruler General Pervez Musharraf.
The dissident faction, which accuses Sharif of running the party like a "dictator," opposes joining the GDA and wants to take a softer line against the military regime.
The GDA includes the PML's political enemy, the Pakistan Peoples Party led by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.