The issue of new provinces is nothing but theatrics that the government is staging in connivance with its coalition partners to distract people from the ‘real issues’, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said.
“Our party is in favour of new provinces, but they’re politicising an issue where there is already a consensus,” he added.
Chaudhry Nisar, who belongs to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), was speaking to the media outside the Parliament House.
The country is facing a severe energy crisis, but the government is paying no heed to the matter, he said.
Warning against the creation of new provinces on linguistic and ethnic grounds, Chaudhry Nisar said Punjab would be able to withstand the divisions on a linguistic basis, but Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Sindh will fail on that account.
Constitutional means should be adopted for the creation of new federating units on an administrative basis, he added.
Reiterating his party’s demand, Chaudhry Nisar said a commission should be constituted to evolve a consensus for creating more provinces. “Those [MQM] who are not ready for the creation of a second district in Karachi are now talking about the formation of new provinces,” he lashed out.
The MQM talks about democracy, but it was scared of its rival Afaq Ahmed, and had pressurised the government to keep him imprisoned, the PML-N leader alleged.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 7th, 2012.
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