January 24, 2006	Tuesday	Zilhaj 23, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 23: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has suspended the Leader of the Opposition in Azad Kashmir Assembly, Barrister Sultan Mehmood, and three other lawmakers for violating party discipline.

The decision was announced by PPP secretary general Jahangir Badar at a news conference held after a meeting of the AJKPP’s executive committee and other office-bearers here.

Mr Badar said the four legislators—Barrister Sultan Mehmood, Hameed Pothi, Chaudhry Rasheed and Gulzar Fatima—had been suspended over their refusal to back the party’s nominee in the recently-held election of the AJK Council.

It may be mentioned that Salis Kiani, a nominee of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto for the AJK Council elections, lost to Hameed Pothi, also belonging to the PPP who had refused to withdraw in favour of Mr Kiani.

Mr Badar said his party would later issue “show cause notices” to six other members of the AJK Legislative Assembly who had cast their votes in favour of Mr Pothi. They were identified as Arshad Hussain, Akhtar Rabbani, Sardar Mohammad Hussain, Haji Javed, Chaudhry Maqbool and Raja Mujahid.

He said Chaudhry Rasheed’s membership had been suspended because it was at his residence that Mr Pothi’s candidacy had been decided. The PPP leader said Barrister Sultan had proposed Mr Pothi’s name and Ms Fatima had seconded the motion.

“Charges mentioned in the [proposed] notices are violation of party discipline, committing horse-trading, damaging the democratic process as well as the party’s image in the eyes of the public,” Mr Badar said. “This is a message that the PPP will not tolerate violation of party discipline at any cost.”

In reply to a question, Mr Badar said the suspended members had the right to appeal to the party chairperson, who had also been informed about the decision.

In response to another question, the PPP secretary general said that Barrister Sultan Mehmood had not been invited to the meeting as that was not necessary.

To another question, he said he could not fault AJKPP president Ishaq Zafar’s action to inform the MLAs about the party leadership’s decision as the opposition leader was supposed to do just that.

Meanwhile, the outgoing member of the AJK Council Sardar Sawar Khan termed the meeting of the executive council as “illegal and unconstitutional.”

Talking to a group of reporters soon after the meeting, he alleged that the decisions had already been taken by the party’s central leadership and the meeting was only convened to cover it up. He said Mr Badar had no right to announce these decisions.

Sawar Khan said that Mr Zafar was running a faction instead of a party in Azad Kashmir. He termed the decisions by the central party leadership to suspend the membership of MLAs as interference in the AJKPP’s affairs.

When asked whether he had raised this point in the meeting, Sawar Khan said that he and other senior members had not been allowed to speak at the meeting.