Shibli slams PDM plan to besiege institutions

Qureshi again asks opposition to hold talks with govt in parliament

ISLAMABAD:

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz on Friday criticised the future planning of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) to lay siege to public institutions in a bid to put pressure on the government.

“It is a regrettable plan to siege public offices like the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP),” the information minister said while talking to a private television channel.

“The immaturity shown by the opposition leaders at the Lahore conference is very regrettable,” Shibli said. “[PML-N Vice President] Maryam Nawaz and [JUI-F chief] Maulana Fazlur Rehman would gain nothing if they tried to put pressure on NAB and ECP,” he opined.

He demanded of the opposition to tell the ECP and NAB about their assets and ill-gotten money. “It is an indecent attitude of the opposition to attack national institutions as pressure tactics.”

To a question about en masse resignations of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the minister said that the party was ruling in Sindh and it would never quit from the assemblies.

The PDM leaders, he said, had completely disappointed in their design. The opposition gained nothing except waste time, he stated.

Separately, talking to the media persons outside the Parliament House, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi again asked the opposition parties' alliance to come for dialogue with the government in parliament keeping aside their agenda of escape from the accountability process.

“Nothing constructive happened in today's PDM meeting at Jati Umra as PPP was represented by former prime ministers Raja Parvaiz Ashraf and Yousaf Raza Gilani, who were not in favour of resignations from assemblies in the past,” the foreign minister said.

 

The minister said both were respectful senior politicians but they did not have the authority to take any decision. “The real decision-making power in the PPP is with Asif Ali Zardari.”

Qureshi said the PDM leadership was holding a meeting at Jati Umra in Lahore, but differences among the constituent parties of the alliance have already come forth.

“The PPP Central Executive Committee has decided that the party will take part in the upcoming by-elections and the Senate elections,” Qureshi said, adding that it also decided that it will not tender resignations from assemblies.

He said that PPP has also not decided any date for a long march.

The opposition alliance had earlier decided that their parliamentarians would submit their resignations to PDM President Maulana Fazlur Rehman by December 31, but PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari opposed it, arguing that the resignations should rather be submitted to the heads of the parties.

Qureshi said that this was enough proof of lack of confidence within the alliance. He said that now again they had given a new deadline of January 31, which would also come and go like the previous one. “The PDM parties have serious internal differences and did not agree with each other’s viewpoint.

“NRO is a way of escape from the accountability process. The opposition was exposed during the FATF legislation meeting wherein they demanded 34 amendments.”

He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan was not ready at all for NRO as the PTI government was in favour of accountability process. (With input from app)