Former prime minister and senior PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi met MQM-Pakistan leader Rauf Siddiqui at their respective appearances before the accountability court in Karachi on Tuesday.

Rauf Siddiqui offered Abbasi to join the MQM. The PML-N leader said the MQM-P vice president in Lahore belonged to his village.

Siddiqui said only a middle-class party is the solution to the country’s problems. He also recited some poetry on the current situation in the country.

Abbasi and other suspects had appeared in court in a case of illegal recruitment in the PSO. The hearing was postponed till December 13.

Later, speaking to the media outside the court, Abbasi denied he had been invited to join MQM, instead he said Siddiqui had invited him over for dinner.

The former premier also said that party leaders kept going in and out of jail, adding that if they had public support, the ideology remained alive.

The PTI has remained in power and opposition both, he maintained, adding that the party was a reality.

Talking about the case he appeared in court for, he said it has been four years, yet he did not know what the allegations were. “I reiterate that if this institution (NAB) is not closed, this country will not run,” Abbasi stressed.

Also Read: PML-N's Miftah Ismail offered to join MQM-P

The incoming government or the present caretaker government should decide what to do with this institution, he said, adding that it was created only for politicians, but no one has been convicted yet.

“This institution is destroying people's lives; who will hold it to account? This is an institution for political engineering, not accountability,” Abbasi remarked.

He further went on to say that former president Asif Zardari and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif are political leaders and should meet and talk. The division and chaos will be resolved only through political dialogue, he added.

He added that he met Nawaz Sharif before the latter returned, and if he was called again, he would go meet him.

“Non-transparent elections have brought the country to the current situation it is in right now,” Abbasi stated.

Earlier, MQM-Pakistan senior leader Dr Farooq Sattar verified media reports that he had offered PML-N leader Miftah Ismail to join his party. He claimed that Miftah declared the need for a common national agenda inevitable and would get back after thinking about it.