Meeting in Larkana: PPP CEC hints at forming a grand alliance

LARKANA: PPP Central Executive Committee (CEC) on Tuesday hinted at taking along other political parties to launch an effective protest against the PML-N government. However, it fell short of announcing any date for its anticipated protest movement.

Briefing the media after the CEC meeting held in the Naudero House on Tuesday night, the PPP leaders – Farhatullah Babar, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Latif Khosa and Sherry Rehman – said the CEC has endorsed the decision of the party’s chairman and co-chairman to contest by-election.

According to them, it was also decided that from now on the party’s chairman and co-chairman will run party matters respectively from Lahore and Islamabad.

Babar said the CEC also discussed the issue of Fata and suggested its merger with Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa. The CEC also expressed its concern over non-implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorism.

The meeting demanded that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan must step down as he has failed in implementing the NAP in letter and spirit.

“The party has decided to file a petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against the interior minister regarding his attitude towards the report of a judicial commission on August 8 Quetta carnage,” Khosa said, adding that the panel of lawyers in this regard will include Ahsan, Farooq H Naek and himself.

The one-man judicial commission, comprising the Supreme Court judge Justice Qazi Faez Isa, had pointed to the interior ministry’s monumental failure to counter terrorism and castigated the interior minister for not taking measures to proscribe militant outfits.

According to the PPP leaders, Zardari will contest by-elections from NA-213 Nawabshah, which is the seat of his sister Azra Pechuho, while Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will contest elections on NA-204 Larkana, the seat of Ayaz Soomro.

The CEC also expressed its concern over inordinate delay in the Benazir Bhutto’s murder case. Khosa said General Pervez Musharraf’s lawyers were responsible for unnecessary delay in the case.

Earlier, the CEC paid rich tributes to the PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and slain chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2016.