LAHORE: Former prime minister and the Senior Vice Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday said that the party would do its utmost to introduce the Accountability Bill in the forthcoming session of the National Assembly.

He expressed his hope that the other political parties in the house would also demonstrate keen interest to make it the law so important for ensuring transparency and accountability in the society as a whole.

While speaking to APP, Gilani said that the PPP was committed to ensue transparency and accountability as per its manifesto and Charter of Democracy (CoD) and therefore had decided to spearhead the move to table the bill in the National Assembly.

Commenting on minorities’ issue, the former PM said that the PPP considered the minorities of the counrty as its constituency and therefore had created a Ministry of Interfaith Harmony headed by Paul Bhatti as Advisor to the prime minister and Akram Gill as minister of state, both of them belong to the minority community.

The senior-vice chairman of the PPP said that the party and its coalition partners were contemplating for the enactment of 21st amendment in the constitution which would increase seats for the minorities in the National Assembly based on the principle of representation on the basis of the population. It may be mentioned that this government has already increased four seats for the minorities in the Senate.

Moreover, the former premier pointed out that the PPP at the first place created consensus on the creation of the Southern Punjab province before taking it up at the appropriate forms in accordance with the constitutional requirements.

Such important issues need extensive and serious deliberations prior to its projection leading to the desired culmination, said Gilani.