Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah has said that members of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will not attend sessions of the provincial assemblies and the parliament on the day of presidential election.
Talking to local media on Sunday, the opposition leader said his party would explain the reasons for boycotting the presidential election on July 29 during the assembly session.
Lashing out at Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the opposition leader said he used to call the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) a terrorist party but today he (Nawaz) had joined hands with them.
Earlier, Khurshid Shah called for resignation of the chief election commissioner and all four members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for “failing to protect their independence”.
The PPP leader said his party would raise the issue of the “partiality” allegedly shown by the ECP in the lead-up to the presidential election during sessions of the National Assembly and Senate today.
The opposition members would lodge a protest in the two houses through points of order.
“The chief election commissioner, along with all the four members, should immediately resign,” said Shah, who was head of the parliamentary committee that approved the appointments of retired justice Fakhruddin G Ebrahim as the CEC and other ECP members.
“In my speech in the assembly (on Monday), I will congratulate Mian Sahab (Nawaz Sharif) for joining hands with the MQM and remind him about a resolution which the PML-N had moved in an all-party conference in London terming the MQM a terrorist party,” he said.
On the other hand, PML-N Senator Jafar Iqbal said the country was passing through a critical time and the prime minister wanted to be in touch with all the political parties for the presidential election.
He said the alliance with the MQM was for the sake of promoting political culture in the country. He said the PML-N needed votes in the presidential elections and that was why it entered an alliance with the MQM.