Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Wednesday took exception to PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif’s “extra-constitutional statement” on formation of a national government for five years.
In a statement, he said it was a clear violation of the oath of a parliamentarian, as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader, in an interview, had proposed a new set-up sans the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
He said all the parliamentarians were bound to follow the constitutional provisions as “all [of us] have taken the oath to protect the Constitution”.
The minister said the PTI was the country’s most popular party, as it had secured the highest number of votes in the last general election of 2018. He accused the opposition parties of indulging in ‘sale and purchase’ of the members of Parliament. Fawad said imminent failure of the no-trust motion would prove to be a fatal blow for the opposition and draw curtains on its politics once and for all. “These are the last days of opposition in the politics and once this politics (no-trust bid) is over, Pakistan will move ahead further,” he said while talking to the media along with federal ministers and senior party leaders here after a high-level meeting of the PTI.
Fawad dared the leaders of both Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) to hold even a single public meeting like the ones addressed by Prime Minister Imran Khan.
They (opposition) had again announced that there would be a ‘long march’ on March 25, he said, adding the ‘long marches’ and ‘public meetings’ could not be made successful while relying on the seminary students only.
“Show some courage and do a “Jalsa” like Imran Khan,” he said while referring to the prime minister’s ongoing massive public meetings, which were being thronged by the people voluntarily.
In a reference to the no-trust motion, he said the PTI had not only dealt with them publicly but also in the Parliament.
Commenting on the reaction over his statement about the scheduled public gathering of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) here at D-Chowk, he said politics was not the job of “faint-hearted” people.
The minister alleged that the scourge of horse-trading had again been revived as evident from the “meena bazar of mules and horses” at the Sindh House. The “open sale and purchase of the loyalties of legislators” was underway and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should come into action to stop the practice, he added.
The ECP, he said, should also issue a notice to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz as its leader Javed Latif had confessed of the party’s indulgence in the horse-trading.
Fawad welcomed a recent statement of Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi in which he acknowledged that the prime minister was an honest person and brushed aside the notion about his party’s support for the opposition’s no-trust move.
