HYDERABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) Sindh president Shah Mohammad Shah has claimed that the federal government is “entreating” [jailed prime minister] Nawaz Sharif for NRO but he will not accept anything that goes against the Constitution.

Speaking at a press conference at the local press club on Sunday, Mr Shah said that the PML-N central executive committee was scheduled to meet on Sunday (Sept 29) to discuss major issues including whether to join Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s proposed Islamabad lockdown next month. He said PML-N would be with the JUI-F.

He said that Railways Minister Shaikh Rashid’s recent statement had made it clear that Mr Sharif was not ready to accept government’s offer “which means that NRO is actually being sought by the government and not Mr Sharif”.

Unless the government publicly apologised to him, no point of government would be accepted, Mr Shah said.

He pointed out that Pakistan had remained under dictatorships for years and years and now an undeclared martial law was in force in the country. “A selected prime minister and his selected government has been installed and they have endangered the national economy,” he claimed, and argued that US dollar’s rate continued to increase while prices of edibles were also constantly soaring. He said that people could not even afford expenses of the burial of their dead.

The PML-N leader also noted that the situation along the country’s frontiers and Line of Control was volatile in the backdrop of Indian atrocities in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He complained that the PML-N’s offer of unconditional support to government on Kashmir issue was reciprocated with arrest of [Mr Sharif’s daughter] Maryam Nawaz.

Criticising state of affairs in the country, Mr Shah noted that even the judiciary was being run through Whatsapp messages.

He also observed that the government covered up the video leak issue involving the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman.

He alleged that NAB was acting like [Prime Minister] Imran Khan’s domestic servant.

Regarding mobilisation of PML-N workers in Sindh, Mr Shah said workers’ convention at divisional level were being held on Sept 29 in Hyderabad after Karachi and then on October 6 in Umerkot.

MNA Kehal Das Kohistani, Nehal Hashmi, Qamaruzaman Rajpar and others were also present.

An unpleasant situation was witnessed when a former office-bearer of the party’s Hyderabad chapter, Hanif Siddiqui, and its provincial information secretary, Qamar Rajpar, exchanged hot words over alleged favouritism in the party. Rajpar asked some of his party colleagues to expel Hanif Siddiqui from the venue of the press conference. Siddiqui stayed on retorting that he was invited by the party’s Sindh president, Shah Mohammad Shah, to the press conference.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2019