KARACHI: Punjab PA incident will lead to govt’s ouster: PPP
By Our Reporter
KARACHI, May 29: The maltreatment of the provincial legislators in Punjab and adoption of a resolution supporting retention of uniform by Gen Pervez Musharraf was termed ‘indicators of things to come’ by a central leader of the Pakistan People’s Party on Thursday.
“What happened in the Punjab Assembly appears to be a dress rehearsal for what they are going to do in the National Assembly at the time of the budget session,” said Taj Haider, the PPP’s central information secretary.
He maintained that the Punjab Assembly, or any assembly for that matter, had no right to pass or discuss a resolution in violation of the Constitution which banned army personnel or others in the service of Pakistan from taking part in politics.
Those who voted for the resolution were politicians who invited generals to power and the generals reciprocated by getting them elected in rigged elections, he claimed.
Mr Haider noted that while misbehaving with some opposition legislators, the establishment spared the MMA perhaps in view of the secret dialogue with the alliance and the hope that it might behave properly in the end.
Sooner or later the government was bound to show its muscle, he said. That was the usual course of action for any government on the way out. The government had played its last card, that is a crackdown on democratic forces.
Mr Haider was of the view that the Punjab Assembly incident was a precursor to what the government was likely to do in the budget session and also to their exit. This must be highlighted, he said.
He also alleged that the governor of State Bank had misbehaved with legislators during a seminar in Islamabad by shouting at the top of his voice at some elected parliamentarians.
The senior politician claimed that the State Bank’s governor had played a key role in the implementation of the foreign IFI agenda, which had brought poverty, unemployment and suicides to the common people of Pakistan.
The IFI agenda being pursued under him had brought about complete stagnation in the national economy. It had resulted in the worst revenue crisis that the country had ever faced, where the total revenues were less than 50 per cent of those projected in the government’s own NFC award, he added.
