Party CEC to decide about attending APC: Hamza

Says PML-N does not want to topple the govt or derail democracy

LAHORE: Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Hamza Shehbaz has said Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Central Executive Committee meeting will be called to decide party’s position on the expected All Parties Conference.

Addressing a press conference, Hamza said that PML-N does not want to topple the government but instead wanted to give it a chance. He added that the party does not want to derail democracy.

Earlier this week, PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq told The Express Tribune that the party had welcomed the APC and termed it ‘need of the hour’.  He said that Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the host of APC had already talked to PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif about the conference.

However, the party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb was not available to comment on the matter when approached.

Referring to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s stance on National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), he said no one was asking for an NRO from the PM. He said PM Imran Khan could not scare PML-N from accountability.  “We have tolerated such victimization before,” he added.

The Punjab Assembly opposition leader said National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was a tainted organisation with ‘no credibility’.

Terming the provincial budget as a ‘joke’, he said it was PML-N’s government had increased the health and education budget in every year but the incumbent government slashed it down greatly.

He rejected the committee constituted by the Punjab Assembly speaker. He said there was injustice in the formation of the committee, which only had two members from opposition and 10 from the government.

Hamza bashed the federal government for increasing the gas and electricity prices. He claimed it was PML-N’s good governance that reduced corruption and not PTI government’s 65 days as claimed by PM Imran Khan.