ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-N on Thursday unleashed a campaign against the government targeting Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani for the first time and asking the Pakistan People’s Party to pull out of the coalition in Punjab and join the opposition in the province.
“Your coalition partners are not supporting you… you are the leader of the House as long as you have the majority… we have not demanded mid-term elections but there would be nothing wrong in it if it happens as it is a part of the democratic process. If the government does not take right decisions and corrects its style of governance, we will be pushed to take an extreme step,” Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in his speech on the floor of the National Assembly in response to the prime minister’s speech.
Nisar objected to the PPP’s criticism of the Punjab government and said the PPP was part of the provincial set up and it must share the responsibility. “If you have self-respect, pull out of the government and join the Opposition as we did in the Centre after having differences with you on the issue of the judges’ reinstatement,” the opposition leader said. He criticised the government for not taking the opposition into confidence over important legislations.
“The members fearlessly make false statements in this august House and even the prime minister claimed that all bills were passed with consultations but I have a list of legislative bills which were passed by bulldozing the Opposition,” he said. “Whenever the prime minister speaks, he talks about consensus and reconciliation but his actions speak otherwise,” he said.
“It is our collective responsibility to care the sanctity of the House. The prime minister went furious a few days ago and said he was not dissolving the assembly and martial law was not being imposed even though we never even talked about a martial law,” he said, adding that the PML-N had always assured the government that it would resist any such move. Nisar said the PML-N had only raised the issue of corruption.
“The draft bill is not being finalised due to obstinacy of the government. The PM commits us on the bill and then backtracks from his commitment after a month,” he said. The opposition leader said the government was mistaken if it thought to run affairs of the government and the House in the current fashion. About the Charter of Democracy, Nisar said the PPP had followed only 20 percent of it against the tall claims of the prime minister that 80 percent of the CoD had been implemented.
