June 3, 2005	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 25, 1426

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

PESHAWAR, June 2: Twenty -four members of the Pakistan Muslim League who had contested for National Assembly and NWFP Assembly seats in the October 2002 general elections on Thursday announced forming a new group, PML-Constitutional, to pressurize the central leadership to run the party according to its charter.

Zakaria Khan, president of the newly-formed group, said there was a crisis in the NWFP chapter of PML but the party bosses, instead of resolving it through a constitutional manner, kept thrusting their decisions which were not acceptable to workers.

“We accept Minister of State Amir Muqam as party’s provincial president but only for an interim period,” he said, adding that it was incumbent upon the nominated chief to announce party elections within 90 days. The period expires on July 6.

Mr Khan, who is the chairman of the Policy Planning Committee of PML, also announced resignation from his post in protest against what he called the “unconstitutional” attitude of the party’s central president and general-secretary.

He said that he had told Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Mushahid Hussain that the crisis in the NWFP PML had shattered the workers’ confidence and there was a dire need to regain their trust.

“In view of the growing unrest among party workers, we have decided to form this group,” he said.

The PML-Constitutional is not a separate faction of the League but it will wage a constitutional struggle while remaining in the party, Mr Khan told a press conference here.

Under the constitution, the party’s central president had the power to remove the provincial president but not the entire cabinet, he said and demanded that the party’s provincial cabinet be restored.

Mr Khan demanded that Amir Muqam announce holding of party elections before July 6 “otherwise we ourselves would announce it and elect a new PML provincial president”.

During the year-long crisis, we remained silent in the hope that the party central leadership would help resolve it but, much to our dismay, it took no action, letting the crisis deepen further, he deplored.

He said the party top brass also failed to solve workers’ problems with the result they stopped taking part in its activities.

He claimed that his group enjoyed support of a maximum number of PML provincial council members.

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)