Caretaker chief minister: ‘Opposition nominations in two days’

Opposition leader lambastes Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for the house’s poor performance.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Peoples Party is expected to announce its nominees for the caretaker chief minister in two days. The party is consulting the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and others and will make a decision after taking all parties on board.

This was stated by Raja Riaz Ahmad, the leader of the opposition in the Punjab Assembly on Saturday. He was responding to a reporter’s question outside the Punjab Assembly.

During the press conference, he lambasted Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for the house’s poor performance and an unceremonious end to the Punjab Assembly term. Riaz said the ‘undemocratic attitude’ of the chief minister was the reason for the assembly’s poor record. He attacked Sharif for not attending most of the sessions. This, said Riaz, reflected the ‘undemocratic thinking’ of the chief minister. He praised the PPP for being the ‘real opposition’.

The PPP leader said Sharif had ignored the programme approved by the business advisory committee. The committee had decided on March 8 that a final session would be held on March 13. The session was to be followed by a dinner and a photo session.

Riaz also dismissed the recent audit of the Metro Bus Service (MBS), Laptop Scheme and Ujala Programme of the Punjab government by Transparency International-Pakistan. The head of the TI-P, he alleged, is a paid worker of the PML-N. He called the reports a fraud and questioned how a Rs70 billion (MBS) project could be investigated and cleared in five or six days. The government says the cost of the MBS was Rs30 billion.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2013.