As the PPP MNA from Quetta Nasir Ali Shah staged a sit-in outside the Parliament House against the ongoing target killings of Hazara Shias, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leadership faced embarrassment on Wednesday when former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi accused the government of a vote fraud plan and warned of a public uprising in case the plan went ahead.
Qureshi announced to stage a rebellion against his own party’s policies if it tried going ahead with the vote fraud plan. And as if this was not enough to isolate Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, the icing on the cake came when ANP lawmaker Bushra Gohar also joined the government bashing campaign, making the PPP-S leader Aftab Sherpao remind Bushra that she was also a treasury member and it was against political ethics to criticise a coalition partner over it’s failures.
But it was Qureshi who led the outburst against the PPP government with dozens of his party colleagues thumping desks and supporting his views. Claiming that the grassroots workers had abandoned the party, Qureshi urged his PPP colleagues to shun the policy of being silent spectators.
“We are hearing about conspiracies being hatched to rig the forthcoming elections and (secret) cells have been established. We are hearing stories of a plan under which new delimitation of the constituencies is being carried out. This would result in protests, because when people come to the streets no one can stick to power. No rigged election can save the rulers,” he warned, saying it was time to wake up.
Bushra Gohar criticised the government’s failure to control load shedding, saying the people’s protests were justified and no one should tell the people what was right and wrong. She asked the prime minister to end corruption in the guise of allotment of development funds. She said all development funds should be diverted to the social sector, including health and education sectors, which should be top priority of the elected government.
She said the government had to come up with out of the box solution to the load shedding problem. She also criticised the APC resolution “We have been claiming that Haqqanis are in Afghanistan. So who should be we be talking to in order to give peace a chance? John Lenon had sung a song ‘give peace a chance’. Now the same is being termed as the country’s security policy. But they should also tell us whom should we talk to? Should we talk to the militants? Uzbeks, Chechens, Arabs or Afghans?” she asked.
PPP-S chief Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said that instead of indulging in a blame game, the parliamentarians should give their suggestions for a permanent solution to load shedding and other national issues. He said Minister for Water and Power Naveed Qamar was the best choice to run the ministry, but the situation was beyond his control. He said the recovery ratio was low in KP and Balochistan. Sardar Ayaz Sadiq of the PML-N said people were enduring scheduled and non-scheduled power load shedding and agriculture produce had registered a sharp decline.
Farahnaz Isphani critricised the PML-N MNAs for raising only the issues related to Punjab. She urged the PML-N leaders to raise issues affecting the entire country. Fauzia Wahab also criticised the opposition members, saying President Asif Ali Zardari had been elected unanimously from three provinces and had a sizable support in Punjab as well. About the power crisis, Fauzia said the PPP government had added 4,000MW to the system and the target of producing 14,000MW would be achieved soon.
Minister for Water and Power Naveed Qamar assured the House that unannounced load shedding will end within two to three days. He said the government would invite the private sector for improving the governance and distribution system, adding that managers were being invited to run the power distribution system as a modern utility company. The minister said 3,000MW had been added to the national grid during the last 38 hours that had helped stabilise the system.
He assured the House that another 2,000MW would be added in a couple of days, which would help end unannounced load shedding. He said all out measures were being taken to improve power supply, adding that reforms and induction of money were very necessary to resolve the issue of circular debt.
