ISLAMABAD, April 14: The People’s Party Parliamentarians seems to be reluctant in accepting the proposal of Pakistan Muslim League (N) chief Nawaz Sharif to form a joint action committee (JAC) of opposition parties on the issue of judicial crisis.
Sources in the PPP told Dawn that the party was not in a mood of sitting with the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) in any committee and at any platform after getting clear directives from its chairperson Benazir Bhutto.
Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif while speaking to party leaders on telephone during the PML-N’s central working committee (CWC) on April 9, had proposed formation of the joint action committee of opposition parties and civil society organisations for better coordination in the movement for independence of the judiciary.
Briefing the reporters after the CWC meeting, PML-N secretary-general Iqbal Zafar Jhagra had announced that they would soon contact leadership of opposition parties for formation of the action committee and expressed the hope that the committee would be formed before April 13.
When contacted on Saturday, PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf said his party had not been formally contacted by the PML-N on the issue of the JAC.
He said the party would look into the possibility of becoming a member of the JAC, once it received a formal invitation in this regard.
Spokesman for Ms Bhutto and former senator Farhatullah Babar said if the JAC was the second name of grand alliance then there was no need for it.
Mr Babar, who returned from Dubai on Saturday after meeting Ms Bhutto, said the MMA and the ARD were two different alliances, therefore, there was no need for making a grand alliance.
Sources said the PPP leaders believed that the PML-N was ideologically closed to the MMA and for that reason it often preferred the MMA over the PPP.
