QUETTA:
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) members walked out of the Balochistan Assembly on Tuesday in protest at remarks made by the parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) about Mian Nawaz Sharif here on Tuesday, in a sign that tension between the two parties in Punjab is spreading.
Ali Madad Jatak of the PPP said in the assembly that the PML-N ministers in the Balochistan cabinet should be kicked out in retaliation for the expulsion of the PPP ministers from the Punjab cabinet.
“Those who supported dictatorship for five years are now busy hatching a conspiracy against the democratic government. But one thing should be clear: the current government came to power through a popular mandate,” Jatak said.
In response, Sardar Sanaullah Zehri of the PML-N said he and the other PML-N minister in the cabinet would resign if Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani asked them to do so. He added that the government was led by Raisani, not the PPP, and he was a part of it because of his respect for the chief minister, not the Peoples Party.
This angered PPP parliamentary leader Mir Sadiq Umrani, who then used inappropriate language about the PML-N chief. The PML-N ministers, Zehri and Captain Abdul Khaliq Achakzai, walked out of the assembly in protest. The speaker had the remarks expunged from the record, but the ministers did not return.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 16th, 2011.
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