Balochistan Advocate General says by invoking Article 234 of the Constitution, President dismissed only the chief minister and his cabinet.
Key allies in the now deposed Balochistan government have given the president until January 20 to lift governor’s rule or else they will “jam the airport and railway system” in a large-scale protest.
“President Asif Ali Zardari should immediately take back his decree and restore the provincial government under Article 236 of the Constitution,” Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani, the provincial chief of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur Rehman) told a news conference at the MPA Hostel in Quetta on Friday.
Maulana Sherani was flanked by Asad Baloch of the Balochistan National Party (Awami), Ali Madad Jattak of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Maulana Abdul Wasay of JUI-Ideological and other politicians.
The JUI-F and BNP-A have nine and seven seats, respectively, in the 65-member Balochistan Assembly. And if PPP’s Deputy Parliamentary Leader Ali Madad Jattak is to be believed all but two PPP lawmakers – Sadiq Umrani and Jan Ali Changezai – support the call for lifting governor’s rule in Balochistan.
The president had imposed governor’s rule in Balochistan on the advice of Premier Raja Pervaiz Asharaf on January 14 on the demand of the Shia Hazara community after twin bombings claimed over a hundred lives in Quetta’s Alamdar Road neighbourhood.
However, Balochistan Advocate General Amanullah Kanrani pointed out that by invoking Article 234 of the Constitution, President Asif Ali Zardari dismissed only the chief minister and his cabinet. The provincial assembly is still functional since constitutionally, another presidential proclamation is needed to suspend the assembly, Kanrani told The Express Tribune.
JUI-F’s Maulana Sherani told the news conference that the provincial government was punished for resisting pressure from certain quarters on the Reko Diq project. The security situation has been fluid for quite some time – and it was used as a pretext to dismiss the Nawab Aslam Raisani-led government.
He warned that if the president did not lift governor’s rule by January 20, all coalition parties would launch a massive protest movement in the province.
Unveiling the protest schedule, he said that a shutter down strike would be observed on Jan 25 and a wheel-jam strike on February 1. “We also plan on jamming the [Quetta] airport and railway system if our demand is not accepted,” he said.
Asked if they plan to mount a legal challenge against the imposition of governor’s rule in the Supreme Court, the JUI-F leader said there was little time for a legal battle because the government was to complete its constitutional tenure this spring.
BNP-A leader Asad Baloch rejected governor’s rule, saying that the provincial government was dismissed “unconstitutionally”. He claimed that the move would not help improve security in the volatile province.
Referring to the January 10 twin bombings in the Alamdar Road bombing, Baloch said he sympathised with the Hazara community. In the same breath, however, he asked, “Why does the government keep mum on the killing of innocent people in military operations?”
“The government does not see the bullet-riddled corpses of missing persons which continue to be dumped,” he said, adding that due to one incident the provincial government was sacked “which is unconstitutional”.
If PPP’s Deputy Parliamentary Leader Ali Madad Jattak is to be believed all but two PPP lawmakers – Sadiq Umrani and Jan Ali Changezai – support the call for lifting governor’s rule in Balochistan.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2013.
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These vultures after eating the muscles, ligaments and skin of the carcass of Balochistan now wants to take away the bones along as a trophy. Molvies have become monsters. It is well know that no most of them do not work for sustenance but are dependent on plundering public money. In these last two months they were to pillage whatever was left. Democracy in Balochistan has added to the list of Billionaires from the Public Money. Some of Religious leaders are richer than the Nawabs. One Molvie sahib has made more landed property than their Nawab. He has installed hundreds of Tube wells on his acquired lands from PSDP.
This is not only about the killing of 86 hazaras, rather they have been ignoring the targeted killing of hazaras which now reaches 2,000. They are not elected politicians but a group of corrupt, criminal and shameless thugs. They cant even speak urdu properly and english is an alien language for them. Hail democracy.
The Federal Govt set a dangerous precedent when they imposed Governor Rule in Balochistan. If they felt that the government there was not performing in a responsible manner then they should have pursued channels which would have enforced the rule of law and order in the province rather than leaving a power vacuum there which can now be exploited by other non-state actors.
The operation hurts their drug trafficking. The ultimate responsibility lies with the people who elected them. Hopefully things will get better after the elections. Bazengo, Talal Bugti and Achakzai are good leaders.
I sincerely hope the people of balochistan teach these punjabis and sindhis a lesson... they have been plundering the wealth of this beautiful province since decades and its time to raise voices ..
Crying for Salaries !. They have realized now what the constitution is all about. Perhaps they dont know that as per the same constitution they must protest the peoples lives and properties.
Their plunder has been left unfinished and they want to finish the task before the elections.
No one can stop their last two months of salaray, right?... what a shameless politicians who ignore 86 dead bodies on Alamdar road and have nurves to ask for reinstatement of the insane CM.
Nobody should be allowed to be a dictator and president should listen to the elected members of the assembly. FC or army can be ordered to fight the terrorist killers without governor's rule.
We don't deserve democracy.