HYDERABAD, Dec 25: Sindh PML-N President Syed Ghous Ali Shah has said that his party’s leadership is justified in saying that the present government is continuation of Pervez Musharraf’s regime.

He said that the government seemed to be carrying burden of its predecessors unnecessarily. However, he said that the government should be given some time but simultaneously it should adhere to the Charter of Democracy signed by the two main political parties.

He was talking to journalists at a local hotel before presiding over a seminar to mark the birth anniversary of the Quaid-i-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

He said that there was a written agreement that the PPP government would undo what Pervez Musharraf had done on Nov 3, 2007 but nothing in that regard had materialized so far.

“Our leadership has logic when it says that it (the PPP government) is a continuation of the past regime. But still they are trying to persuade the government to fulfil its commitment so that no one could derail the system,” he said.

He said that the army was fully capable to respond to any kind of situation in case of a war with India. “We are a nuclear power. India knows it that Delhi and Mumbai can be destroyed within five to six minutes. It will certainly refrain from war”, he said.

He said that the world powers were also trying to avert any war between the two countries. He said that war always led to destruction of humanity.

He said that if there were terror attacks in Mumbai then an Islamabad hotel was also attacked but Pakistan did not blame India.

Answering a question about Nawaz Sharif’s statement that Pakistan seemed to be a failed state now, he denied that Nawaz Sharif described Pakistan a failed state. He said that Pakistan was not a failed state given the fact that it did not have symptoms, which normally reflected failure of any state. He said that Pakistan had not backtracked on debt servicing or failed to meet its international economic commitments and obligations. “Pakistan is in a better position”, he said.

He disagreed with the idea of formation of a national government at this stage. He said that the present government had been given mandate by the people therefore it should be given some time. However, he said that the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) would keep a close watch on its performance.

About the government’s performance, he said that it was moving slowly because it seemed to be carrying the burden of the past regime also. “The government should be given some time but it should also fulfil its commitments made under the Charter of Democracy, which contains a blueprint about the system the country needs”, he said.

Regarding the reported seniority given to Justice Agha Rafiq Ahmed in Sindh High Court ahead of incumbent chief justice Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, he said that the case of the former was very old and he and Chief Justice of Supreme Court Abdul Hameed Dogar had the same dates of appointment.

“His case not got to be accepted because he didn’t join any other department after he was relegated to sessions court. He in fact submitted his case before his judges for determination of his seniority”, he said.

He said that not only parliament but its standing committee was supreme.

He said that the Quaid-i-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, had laid emphasis on the need for parliamentary democracy in the country but successive military interventions did not allow democracy to flourish.

He urged the democratic forces to strengthen democracy because any derailment of democratic process would be destructive. He said that the PPP should have quit Punjab government when PML-N left ministries at the federal level.

He said that hard-hitting statements in Punjab would not affect the Punjab government.