LAHORE: The PPP alleges that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government is planning to carve out a splinter group in the PPP in a bid to oust its Sindh government and warns the government of reaction if the redline is crossed.

“There are dreams of the fall of Sindh government. Script for the creation of Patriot (a reference to such a PPP faction established by the Musharraf regime in 2002) group is being written,” PPP Punjab chapter president Qamar Zaman Kaira said in a press conference here on Tuesday.

Flanked by Chaudhry Manzoor and Hassan Murtaza, he said that they respected the state institutions but there would be no compromise if redline was crossed.

Referring to Federal Minister Fawad Chaudhry’s statement that the Sindh governor was a magician who could bring about a change in Sindh within 48 hours if desired so by Prime Minister Imran Khan, Mr

Kaira said such statements and arranging meetings of the PML-N MPs with the prime minister were a part of the script for ‘Patriot-II’.

He said the minister’s statement meant that the governor was conspiring against the provincial government and was busy finding turncoats and that warranted action against him.

Ch Manzoor said arrests of Sindh Assembly Speaker Asif Ali Zardari and Faryal Talpur could not shake confidence of the PPP MPs in the party leadership and any more ‘fascist measures’ was bound to fail on the issue.

Responding to a query, Mr Kaira said there was a risk of arrest of Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and condemned the attempts being made to involve the party chairman in the Park Lane case.

He said Mr Zardari was arrested in the past in the abortive attempts to put pressure on the late Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and now the tactics was being employed to pressurise his son, Bilawal Bhutto.

The PPP leader said the so-called Debt Inquiry Commission had been instituted for the media trial of the opposition by leaking its ‘concocted’ reports. He termed the arrest of PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah a joke as no footage or witness account was given about the recovery of the so-called contraband from the former Punjab law minister’s vehicle.

Answering a question about the party’s efforts to get a Senate chairman removed it itself had brought into the office, Mr Kaira said the PPP had cooperated with the then opposition party, the PTI, in installing Sadiq Sanjrani as head of the Upper House while it was now collaborating with the opposition, the PML-N, in removal of the same.

About the likely defection in the tiny Punjab PPP Parliamentary Party, parliamentary leader Hassan Murtaza said all seven members of the group would join the party protest and rallies being planned for each divisional headquarters and other major towns of the province to show their continued loyalty to the party.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2019