LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has defended its plans for bringing about a change in Punjab through a no-confidence motion against Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, arguing the province is the soft belly of Imran-led government.

“If the Punjab government is ousted somehow, Imran Khan’s [federal] government can no longer sustain its hold on the country,” PPP’s Punjab chapter general secretary Chaudhry Manzoor told a news conference on Sunday.

The PPP plan was revealed on Saturday by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz, who said Asif Ali Zardari had offered a deal to the PML-N in a meeting of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), purportedly backed by the establishment, about regime change in Punjab.

Flanked by Aslam Gill, Dr Khayyam and Altaf Qureshi, Chaudhry Manzoor criticised the PML-N for preferring to retain the Buzdar government.

Manzoor says move will weaken govt

“The PPP with only seven members [in a 371-strong house of Punjab Assembly] cannot bring its own chief minister in the province. So, the PML-N or any other contender that can show majority in the house is the option for getting rid of the incumbent, inept and incompetent government.”

He said petrol, sugar and flour mafias were fleecing the masses because of the rulers’ incompetence and yet the PML-N is siding with Imran Khan to keep this government intact by not acting against it.

About the PML-N’s allegation that PPP had struck a deal by getting votes of treasury members to win the slot of the opposition leader in Senate for Yousuf Raza Gillani, Chaudhry Manzoor said his party never blamed the PML-N for striking a deal when Maryam Nawaz and Hamza Shehbaz were granted bail, while bail for Shehbaz Sharif was also round the corner.

He said Ms Nawaz could do whatever she wanted within her party, but she should keep her tone “reasonable” for allies.

The PPP leader denied his party had made any commitment with the PDM for any Senate office except for the deputy chairman of the upper house of parliament.

Lamenting that the PML-N had been fielding people against whom the PPP had reservations, he recalled that the former had launched as senator ex-top cop Rana Maqbool, who had cut the tongue of Asif Ali Zardari in Karachi jail.

Now the N-League wanted to give the office of opposition leader in the Senate to Azam Nazir Tarar, knowing well that he was counsel for the police officers accused in the Benazir Bhutto murder case, he added.

The PPP leader told a questioner that if the PML-N was committed to attaching resignations from assemblies with the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement’s planned long march on Islamabad, it should have talked about it during the March 16 meeting of the opposition alliance.

He also advised the PML-N leadership to discuss the problems it had with the PPP or any other opposition party at the PDM platform instead of washing dirty linen in public.

Giving credit to his party for the establishment of the PDM, he said the PPP would do its best to keep the alliance intact.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2021