K-P govt’s failure: Dissolution of PA opposed

ANP’s Hussain Babak asks PTI to own up its failure instead

PESHAWAR: Opposition members in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly rejected the idea of dissolving the assembly over the removal of ‘Western Route’ from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Awami National Party’s (ANP) parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) should publicly own up its failure and resign instead of dissolving the whole assembly.  “We will not let them dissolve the assembly,” Babak asserted while addressing a press conference after the session was adjourned because of lack of quorum.

He was accompanied by leader of the opposition Maulana Lutfur Rahman of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Saleem Khan of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Opposition lawmakers were annoyed by the adjournment and expressed their frustration by shouting slogans such as: ‘Go Imran Go’. PTI members, on the other hand, reciprocated, shouting: ‘Go Nawaz Go’.

Members of the opposition were angry at the government because the incomplete quorum was pointed out by a member of the treasury benches, Mehmood Jan.

Criticising the government, Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha said that maintaining quorum was government’s responsibility.

“This is the first time in the history of this house that a member of the treasury benches was pointing out incomplete quorum … if this is the change PTI has been talking about, the people of K-P curse such change.”

Nalotha said that he had asked the speaker of the assembly to call the assembly into session when PTI got free of ‘sit-ins, protests, rallies and dance shows’. Opposition lawmakers also pointed out that PTI legislators and ministers were absent because they had gone to attend a rally in the Matani area of Peshawar. Maulana Lutfur Rahman said that Imran Khan was trying his level best to derail democracy and pointed out that he (Imran Khan) had recently issued a statement supporting dictatorship.

Berating the PTI chief for completely ignoring corruption in K-P under his party’s rule, he cited the case of Bank of Khyber scam in which the bank’s MD had accused the K-P finance minister of corruption.  “This man [Imran Khan] talks against corruption throughout the world, but he doesn’t care about corruption charges against his party’s government in K-P,” Rahman said.

He also referred to statements of former Director-General of K-P Ehtesab Commission, former Director K-P Anti-Corruption Establishment and former chairman of the board of directors of K-P Energy Development Organization.

“I don’t understand how they (PTI leadership) can digest all these charges.”

Sardar Hussain Babak of ANP criticised the government for holding a rally at Nishtar Hall in Peshawar on Thursday and pointed out that the government had banned all political gatherings at Nishtar Hall.

“We requested the government to (allow us to use the hall to) observe the death anniversaries of Shaheed Bashir Bilour and Mian Iftikhar Hussain’s son but they denied us permission, but the government itself was using the hall for PTI political gatherings,” he said. Babak said that there was no difference between PTI and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). “The only difference is that PTI is the political wing while TTP is the militant wing (of the same organization),” he said.

Earlier, the assembly passed the K-P Commission on Status of Women Bill, 2016.

The bill is aimed at reconstituting and reorganizing the commission besides making it more autonomous and financially independent.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2016.