HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Sherry Rehman has said that opposition has not dragged army into politics but it is the “incompetent and selected prime minister” who has done this.

“When vacuum is left, such a situation is bound to arise,” she said while speaking to the media during her visit, along with other senior party leaders, to the venue of the public meeting of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) on Monday evening.

The event is scheduled to be held at Hatri bypass on Tuesday (today).

Senator Rehman claimed that this [Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf] government had destroyed all institutions, including PIA and PTDC, over the last two-and-a-half years.

“The opposition is committed to shake this government through all possible democratic and constitutional means,” she said, and noted that inflation, price hike and debt had risen while the parliament had been padlocked.

She alleged that members of the treasury benches resorted to hooliganism in the house. She said that an army of unelected advisers kept criticising opposition parties because they had nothing to deliver.

The senior PPP leader said that the prime minister had given a statement in Kotli which, according to her, was not in line with the country’s defined policy on India-held Kashmir.

She observed that it was only the opposition which was facing accountability. She said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) could not do what it was doing in line with Supreme Court’s orders. Even international institutions had questioned NAB.

She said that the prime minister used to issue statements on foreign policy without any serious work prompting the foreign ministry to issue clarification the next day.

She said the PTI government was trying to do everything by hook or by crook because it was losing ground.

The senator alleged that Rs500m was being disbursed among ruling party’s parliamentarians like toffees.

MNA Naveed Qamar said that the PDM was picking up momentum because common man was fed up with the never-ending price hike. He said that the agitation would continue and long march to Islamabad would be held on March 26. “If it comes to staging a sit-in, it will also be held in order to oust this government,” he said.

PPP spokesman Faisal Karim Kundi accused the prime minister of indulging in horse-trading and urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to take notice of “the Rs500m bribe being paid to parliamentarians by Imran Khan”.

He argued that when [former prime minister] Shahid Khaqan Abbasi disbursed Rs50m to parliamentarians, the action was questioned “but this disbursement by the PTI government is considered to be halal”.

He said that the PTI government also violated the Constitution by including three sitting governors in its parliamentary board for Senate elections. “It’s a clear case of conflict of interests and PPP will question it before ECP,” he said.

PPP Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, accompanying Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F (JUI-F) leader Maulana Taj Mohammad Nahiyoon, Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan leader Karamat Rajput and Comrade Taj Marri of the National Party, Saleem Tareen, also spoke to the media during a visit to the venue.

He said that the Tuesday public meeting “will be a historic event”.

In reply to a question, Mr Khuhro said that this government did not get five per cent random sampling on census done as promised and the census figures were not yet published. “These census figures are to be submitted in the Council of Common Interests (CCI) which would finally approve it,” he said.

He pointed out that fresh delimitations were also linked with census figures but it had not been done so far. He said that 2018 elections were held on the basis of previous delimitations. He said that NFC Award was also dependent on these census figures. He said that if census figures were not finalised, the NFC Award would also be affected. He said that this government did not take any step to finalise census figures in almost last three years.

Answering another question, he said that PPP did not defer any protest or option of PDM in this anti-government movement. He said that PPP was working within PDM for which it had made great efforts to unite opposition parties.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2021