No in-house change in the offing: Shujaat: Negotiations with MMA soon
By Our Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD, Sept 1: PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain on Monday debunked reports that Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali would soon be replaced through an in-house change and said these rumours were being spread by vested interests.
Talking to newsmen in his assembly chamber, he said he had no differences with the prime minister. Chaudhry Shujaat, who is also PML-Q’s parliamentary party in the National Assembly, said he along with the party would continue supporting Mr Jamali.
The PML-Q chief said President Gen Pervez Musharraf had given him mandate for holding talks with the opposition and added that whenever finalized, the constitutional package would be presented to him. He denied having met the president on Sunday.
He said he had briefed the prime minister earlier in the day on the progress so far made on the expert level talks with the MMA team and added that the two sides had decided to continue the process.
The PML-Q chief said it was decided that the process of dialogue would be resumed in the next two to three days.
Asked why the government was holding talks with the MMA and ignoring other parties, he said this was being done because one understood that all the other opposition parties were silently backing the MMA in its efforts to resolve the LFO issue. Secondly, he added, the government felt that a settlement with the religious parties’ alliance would end the political impasse.
Answering a question about rumours that the system was being wound up by the ‘forces’ which had brought it into being, he said: “Those who have introduced the system would never destroy it”.
Asked who would introduce the constitutional package in parliament, the PML chief said the MMA had created a misleading impression that the said amendments would be presented to parliament by the government.
“Actually,” he elaborated, “the package will be presented jointly when the two sides will have reached a consensus on it.”
Commenting on a statement by PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, he claimed that it was his cousin and Punjab CM Chaudhry Pervez Elahi who had introduced the former prime minister to politics at the behest of Gen Jillani.
Earlier, speaking to the ruling coalition’s parliamentary group, he said in spite of the rumpus created by the opposition the government would go for legislation in the house.
