Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo and former premier Nawaz Sharif is likely to visit southwestern Balochistan province next week to expand his party’s alliances with regional players, as political activities gained momentum ahead of the elections scheduled in February.

Sharif’s party PML-N on Tuesday formed an alliance with the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement against Bhuttos’ Pakistan People’s Party and announced reaching out to other players in Sindh province. Now the party seems to have set its eyes on Balochistan. The PML-N sent its senior leader Ayaz Sadiq to the province and he reportedly managed to attract a former Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) leader to his party’s fold, the Express Tribune newspaper reported.

According to a Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) leader, who was part of the previous federal cabinet, the PML-N was currently approaching leaders from the BAP and more were expected to join them. “If this plan does not materialise, both [parties] will form an alliance for the elections,” he added.

He further said his party was hearing of another alliance between the Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F), Awami National Party (ANP) and PaKhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party in the province. The BNP-M leader continued that given the ties between the JUI-F and PML-N, this would translate into a grand alliance in Balochistan. He said BNP-M chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal was not in the country and there was no internal party discussion on the issue. He maintained that as of now, his party had no plan of forging an alliance with the PML-N. The party leader said ironically, it was the PML-N that called the BAP as “the king’s party” until it was in an alliance with the PTI.

Sharif’s visit to Balochistan is being planned when his rival Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, chief of Pakistan Peoples Party, will visit Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa from November 16 to 21 in a bid to cobble up some support for the next elections, according to the party’s information secretary Faisal Kareem Kundi.

He said Bilawal would meet with several leaders in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and many of them were expected to join the party. Kundi continued that the PPP would be reaching out to other parties in KP as well.

In a related development, Sharif’s younger brother and PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif said his party would return to power to accomplish the tasks left “unfinished” during the tumultuous 16-month tenure of the previous coalition government. “Pakistan was on the brink of bankruptcy when the PML-N assumed control and managed to steer the country out of its crises,” he told former lawmakers Syed Sajid Shah and Malik Nazir Langrial, both representing Vehari, during his meeting with them in the southern Punjab city.

Shehbaz pointed out that the PML-N had made significant sacrifices, relinquishing political capital for the greater good of the country. He highlighted the PML-N’s dedication to preventing Pakistan from experiencing further setbacks and its efforts on various development projects across the nation, particularly in Punjab.

Speaking about Karachi, he mentioned the allocation of a significant amount of funds for many projects in the city, citing the importance of its progress to Nawaz, according to the paper.

Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has raised concerns over the lack of a level-playing field. Also, the rivalry between the PML-N and the PPP has gained momentum as the latter has alleged that the Nawaz-led party has a hidden alliance with the current caretaker government.