KARACHI, July 23: Pakistan Muslim League-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has said that the present rulers appear to be non-serious about addressing the pressing issues confronting the people if their first 100 days in power are anything to go by.

The PML-Q chief, who was in the city for the first time after the February 18 polls on Tuesday, accompanied by the party’s secretary-general Mushahid Hussain Sayed, was talking to a group of journalists at a dinner hosted for them by Jam Madad Ali, leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly and parliamentary leader of the PML-F.

Responding to questions, Mr Hussain said that the chapter of the Kalabagh Dam was not closed, adding that the dam would be built with the consensus of all four provinces.

He ruled out the existence of any terrorist training camps in the tribal areas of Pakistan and said that since the US Democratic Party’s presidential hopeful Barack Obama had visited Afghanistan, if he had any information about such camps he should point out their locations to the government.

Mr Sayed, taking over from his party chief, said that they had earlier visited “political prisoners” from Sindh including Altaf Hussain Unnar in Hyderabad and MNA Ayaz Shirazi in Thatta. The former federal minister said they had gone to express solidarity with them and party workers who were being implicated in “political cases.”

He said that in Sindh, hundreds of PML-F and PML-Q workers were implicated in cases and an average of 10 FIRs were being registered daily against workers of the opposition.

Mr Sayed criticised the language used by Pakistan People’s Party leaders against Jam Madad Ali and said threats were hurled from the government. “They must remember it is not the 1970s but 2008. The people and media are now quite conscious and will not let them go unaccounted for. It appears that in Sindh the rulers’ focus is on the politics of vendetta and victimisation.”

He said that during the first 100 days’ performance of the PPP-led government, instead of implementing the party manifesto given by their leader of roti, kapra aur makan, the rulers were bent upon snatching the same from the people.

Mr Sayed said the murder of Bilawal House’s chief security officer on Tuesday and a deputy secretary of the Sindh government the day before indicated that law and order had collapsed. “But the government is holding the previous government responsible for everything, even though Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani – in his very first speech – had pledged not to blame the previous government,” he added.

The PML leader said that there was a dire need to realise that the country was going through a very difficult time and it was not possible for any one party or institution to steer the country out from the crisis alone, and the only solution lay in taking everyone along.

He said if the government had its mandate, then the opposition parties too had a mandate as they had bagged over 11.5 million votes against the ruling party’s 10.8 million.

Stressing the need to take decisions in parliament instead of elsewhere, Mr Sayed repeated his proposal that before the prime minister’s US visit, a joint session of parliament should be called where issues to be taken up with the US should be discussed, which would strengthen the hands of the prime minister.

In reply to another question, he said his party was against terrorism as well as religious extremism, which had no place in Pakistan, which was a democratic country.

He said his party had offered the government total cooperation to overcome the challenge of soaring prices.