LAHORE, Nov 6: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) blames the army government and People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) for the present deadlock in the formation of government.
Not convening the National Assembly session was the actual crisis, MMA central leader and nominee for the NA speaker’s slot, Liaquat Baloch, told Dawn here on Wednesday.
He believed that the deadlock was artificial and could be handled by invoking the relevant constitutional clauses and NA’s rules of business.
Solving various issues about the future government outside the House was a good option, but delaying the session for the sake of it was based on malafide intentions, he said.
The government had first announced that the maiden session would be held on Nov 8, but the president, who, the MMA leader said, was acting as the NA speaker for the time being, had not issued the notification in this regard, which aimed at the harassment to the MNAs-elect that the assembly might be dissolved and re-polling might be ordered.
He also criticized the PPP president for talking ‘loosely’ about delaying the session. The PML-Q leader, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, had endorsed Fahim’s views as the government had got a chance to use the electronic media for propagating that two major players in the power politics had wanted the session put off, he added.
Mr Baloch equally blamed the PPP for creating the deadlock by not adopting a clear policy on certain issues and, simultaneously, holding talks with both the parties — the government and the MMA.
He feared that the PPP might betray its colleagues in the ARD as well as the MMA by carving out a so-called ‘forward bloc’ among its MPs at the last moment, that might not vote for the joint candidate of the ARD and MMA, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, for the prime ministership.
He said:”We have a bitter experience of this tactic in the last local body polls in Lahore when Akhlaq Guddu etc., of the party had created a forward bloc against a joint nominee of the PPP and Jamaat for the district Nazim. The PPP had announced that it would take action against the ‘disgruntled’ workers, but instead it later awarded tickets to these people in the Oct 10 elections.”
He said the PPP, which was earlier extending unconditional support to Maulana Fazl, had now handed them a demands’ package which would be discussed by the MMA components on Thursday (today).
