ISLAMABAD – After the formation of the Likeminded and Unification Bloc, the PML-Q appears to be facing another serious internal crisis with the party’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly, Faisal Saleh Hayat, and other parliamentarians expressing their reservations over the Chaudhrys’ unilateral decision to walk out from the presidential address to a joint session of parliament without consulting them. Faced with resentment from the parliamentarians, the Chaudhrys, who had announced the decision to walk out from the presidential address a day earlier, took a U-turn on Monday leaving the matter to be decided by the parliamentary party before the joint session of parliament today (Tuesday).
Expressing serious reservations over the way the party affairs were being run, Hayat said he was not part of any decision regarding the boycott of the joint session.
He said he and his parliamentary colleagues would attend the joint session today (Tuesday). “I was not part of any meeting in which the party decided to boycott the joint sitting of parliament. Many members of the National Assembly from the PML-Q have also contacted me to express their astonishment on the decision, saying that they too weren’t consulted by the party,” Hayat said in an exclusive talk with Pakistan Today. He said for the last few months decisions were being taken in the party without taking him and his parliamentary colleagues into confidence. “There is no responsibility on me to follow the party’s decision to boycott the joint session as I was not consulted about it,” he said, adding that he had also not been consulted by the party’s leadership regarding PML-Q’s delegation meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari.
He said he along other PML-Q MNAs were also unaware of the details of the meeting between the Chaudhrys and President Asif Ali Zardari. He said decisions by political parties were taken after due debate, discussion and consultation “but it is very unfortunate that this practice is going to extinct in our party”. “The party lawmakers should be apprised about the reasons on which the party is going to boycott the joint sitting. I remained most vocal against the government of all PML-Q parliamentarians in the last three years and I represented the party on every pivotal issue but I was not consulted on the boycott decision,” he said.
He said the PML-Q had been claiming that it was the real opposition and the PML-N was hand in gloves with the PPP government. “The real opposition gives tough time to the government instead of providing it a space to play,” he said, adding that in the past the PML-Q had been criticising the PML-N on its “politics of boycotts” with the argument that it was in fact a method to facilitate the PPP government.
