LAHORE: After the Pakistan Muslim League-N’s announcement of sitting in opposition in the Centre, the Pakistan People’s Party too has opted to quit power in Punjab.
PPP central information secretary Fauzia Wahab told a news conference at the Lahore Press Club on Thursday that her party had already made it clear that it would reciprocate the PML-N’s decision.
Flanked by PPP (Punjab) information secretary Dr Fakharuddin Chaudhry, she said on the return of President Zardari from Japan, the PPP ministers in Punjab would resign.
She said the PPP ‘respected’ the PML-N decision and it would have no adverse impact on the resolve of the two major parties to implement the Charter of Democracy (CoD) and doing away with the 17th Amendment.
She hoped that both the oppositions in the centre and Punjab would play a constructive role. She said the PPP expected of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to follow in the footstep of the federal government and announce the Public Accounts Committee chairman.
She said the PML-N government had not yet given any plan to improve the economy of the country.
‘Providing sasti roti while burdening national exchequer will harm the economy at the end of the day. Though it can be a good point-scoring game, it is by no means good governance,’ she said, adding that the PML-N in the past too had launched a similar (yellow cab) scheme.
Fauzia Wahab said the PPP was against the politics of forward bloc and it would continue to condemn it. About the nomination of the PPP’s opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly, she said no name in this regard had been finalised so far.
REACTION
Most political parties not represented in the parliament want the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party to join hands to solve people’s problems instead of parting ways at the federal and Punjab level.
The PPP announced that its ministers would resign from the Punjab cabinet after the PML-N decided not to rejoin the federal cabinet.
Jamaat-i-Islami naib ameer Liaquat Baloch says the split mandate people gave to the two parties in the February 2008 election demands that they go hand-in-hand and steer the country out of crises.
He says the two parties should form coalition governments at federal and provincial level, as they have ‘identical stance’ on key issues like drone attacks, Islamisation in the country, Kashmir and ongoing military operations in Fata and Balochistan.
Baloch said their solo flights could cause political accidents as also indicated in PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s speech in the parliament.
Asked why the PML-N was insisting on sitting on opposition benches in the National Assembly, the JI leader said the party wanted midterm polls, if its policies were anything to go by, while the PPP could not yet reestablish its trust with the PML-N leadership.
Tehrik-i-Istiqlal president Rehmat Khan Wardag supports Baloch’s view that the PML-N is seeking midterm polls by not joining the federal cabinet. He, however, sees the US ‘working’ on Nawaz Sharif behind this policy.
The imperial power, he claims, wants to exploit the PML-N leader’s rising popularity graph to accomplish its own agenda in the region.
He says both parties, if they form governments independently in the centre and Punjab, won’t have any excuse for not solving people’s problems. This situation can be beneficial for the nation too if the PPP and the PML-N play their role as vibrant oppositions in their respective houses to check lawlessness, corruption, price-hike and unemployment.
Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf information secretary Omar Sarfraz Cheema says his party wants the PPP and the PML-N to go together. He says the PML-N is morally bound to rejoin the federal cabinet, as its demand for reinstatement of the deposed judges has been met.
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