Rejecting the Punjab Local Government (LG) Bill 2013, the All Parties Conference (APC) comprising provincial opposition parties on Wednesday announced to protest against the bill and to challenge it in the court of law.
All political and religious opposition parties in collaboration with the Lahore High Court Bar Association and several non-governmental organisations passed a joint declaration against the LG bill.
In the declaration passed unanimously by the opposition parties in the APC held at the Ambassador Hotel, Punjab’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government was warned that the opposition parties would hold protests across Punjab from Friday and furthermore, they would approach the court against the PML-N’s illegal act to pass such a bill which violated Pakistan’s constitution.
The APC was called by the PA’s main opposition party on an emergent basis. The speakers at the conference termed the proposed LG bill unlawful and non-democratic.
Paksitan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s PA Opposition Leader Mian Mehmood Rasheed, NGO’s representative Salman Abid, Lahore Bar Association President Abid Saqi, Jamaat-e-Islami’s Dr Waseem Akhtar, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)’s Qazi Ahmad Saeed, PPP General Secretary Tanveer Ashraf Qaira, MWM’s Asghar Aslam, Awami Muslim League’s Mian Qadeer, Mian Aslam Iqbal, PML-Q’s Waqas Hassan Moakal, JUI’s Qari Sanaullah and Qari Zawar Buhadar and JI’s Ameer ul Azeem also participated in the conference.
According to the joint declaration, the said bill was being laid in violation of constitution’s Article 140-A. The article obligated the provincial government to transfer administrative and financial authority to the elected, on party based elections, local body office bearers.
It stated for the government to hold party based local body elections adding that non-party based local body elections would result is the establishment of dictatorship of the current government in the province. It further said that the bill violated the Charter of Democracy.
