Fawad downplays PDM meeting

Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry has said the efforts to resurrect the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) – originally an 11-party opposition alliance that later split due to the exit of two parties – are aimed at providing relief to PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif in corruption cases.

“While the UK government has refused to extend Nawaz’s visa, the opposition parties are trying to beat the dead horse of the PDM. What can be their purpose?” the minister said on Wednesday in a reference to the PDM’s meeting in the federal capital.

With the avowed aim to restart its campaign to topple the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan with a fresh round of protests, the PDM on Wednesday announced that it will hold a rally in Karachi on August 29, which was earlier postponed due to resurgence of coronavirus in the country.

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Speaking to the media following the meeting, PDM President Maulana Fazlur Rehman said a meeting of the PDM's steering committee would be held on August 21 whereas another meeting would be held on August 28, a day before the Karachi rally.

Commenting on the meeting, Chaudhry said it was hoped that PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif would put on the meeting’s agenda the issue of the return of his brother Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan “as he [Shehbaz] guaranteed before the court that Nawaz would return to Pakistan after his treatment”.
“However, it didn’t happen,” he said.

According to the minister, the PDM is now a congress of losers. He said when the PDM first tried to topple the government by asking the opposition lawmakers to tender resignations from legislatures, both the PPP and the ANP left the alliance.

“The PDM’s new push will result in the resignation of the lawmakers from Fazl’s party but this would not affect the government,” he said, adding that with every passing day the people’s association with Prime Minister Imran Khan is getting stronger.