PML-N, JUI-F dismayed by PPP’s decision

The PML-N and the JUI-F have expressed their disappointment at the PPP’s decision to all but quit the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) instead of assuaging the grievances of other component parties of the 11-party alliance.

PML-N founder Nawaz Sharif and JUI-F’s senior leader Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri criticised the PPP for choosing to not reply to the “show-cause” notice issued to it for seeking support from the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), a government ally, to secure the opposition leader’s slot in the Senate.

“The show cause was given because you took the BAP senators along to appoint your leader of opposition in the Senate. It is unthinkable that this could happen yet it happened which was very surprising,” Sharif said according to PML-N’s official Twitter handle.

Haideri said the PPP should have resigned from the PDM at the time when it decided to seek the BAP votes. “The PPP has committed political suicide today,” he said in his reaction to the decisions taken by PPP’s Central Executive Committee.

“The PPP is supporting [Prime Minister] Imran Khan’s government and the people will respond to what the PPP is doing, in the next general elections,” he said, adding that only those who have burned their boats would continue the movement against the government.

Asked whether or not the PDM would apologise to the PPP and the ANP, Haideri told The Express Tribune, how the alliance could apologise while someone else made the mistake.

Responding to another question about any scope of reuniting all the parties in the alliance, Haideri said: “There is only one way for the PPP to return to the PDM: Yousuf Raza Gilani, who took office of the leader of the opposition in the Senate, should resign.

“Then everything else could be discussed,” he added. About the PDM’s future, he said that he was glad the PPP had left, adding that now the opposition’s “movement will be run with full concentration”.

Meanwhile, PDM President Maulana Fazlur Rehman has convened a meeting of the remaining 8 parties of the alliance on Tuesday (today) to discuss the differences within the PDM and the “separation” of the two parties. The meeting will consider the PDM’s future strategy also.

Earlier, speaking to the media outside the Lahore High Court (LHC) after attending the pre-arrest bail hearing, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz said PDM President Maulana Fazlur Rehman would decide the PPP’s fate.

The PML-N leader said the victory of the PML-N candidate in the recent Daska by-poll was the first step towards change in the country, adding that the by-poll result showed that the “government’s power is diminishing”.

“Nawaz Sharif, while sitting in London, defeated the government and all its resources, while the people of Daska not only seconded the vision of their Quaid but also protected their votes,” Maryam Nawaz said.

“All state machinery, including the prime minister and chief minister’s resources and administrative powers, were used and different development funds were offered to defeat the PML-N, but those efforts bore no fruit,” she maintained.

Speaking about the cases against senior PTI leader Jahangir Tareen, she said Prime Minister Imran had used Tareen’s aircraft, money and other resources for establishing the party. “It is astonishing that now suddenly he [Tareen] is being dragged into the sugar scandal.”

Court proceedings

Earlier, an LHC’s division bench, headed by Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar, heard the pre-arrest bail plea of Maryam Nawaz in the 1500-kanal Jati Umra land case. NAB’s special prosecutor Syed Faisal Raza Bukhari told the bench that the graft buster had not issued the arrest warrants.

PML-N’s counsel Azam Nazir Tarar requested that his client be intimated about her arrest 10 days earlier so that she could avail the remedy. The bench directed the NAB to intimate the PML-N leader about the arrest and adjourned the hearing.