Saad Rafique visits Quetta to appease drab coalition

Published December 6, 2014
Federal Minister for Railways, Khawaja Saad Rafique talks to the media after a meeting with provincial leadership of PML-N in Quetta on Saturday. – INP
Federal Minister for Railways, Khawaja Saad Rafique talks to the media after a meeting with provincial leadership of PML-N in Quetta on Saturday. – INP

QUETTA: Federal Minister for Railways, Khawaja Saad Rafique arrived in Quetta on Saturday to sort out differences between ruling Baloch-Pakhtun nationalists and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

PML-N leaders have been complaining of being ignored by Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch and his coalition partners, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP).

PML-N Secretary General Iqbal Zaffar Jhagra, Raja Zafarul Haq and Senator Sardar Yaqoob Nasar also accompanied Rafique, who held a detailed meeting with Nawab Sanaullah Zehri and other PML-N legislators at a local hotel here.

Speaking to media representatives after the meeting, the railways minister said that differences among the coalition partners in Balochistan would be sorted out through political means and table talks.

“We are here to bring the two sides closer to each other,” he said.

The party lawmakers presented a long list of reservations before the visiting PML-N leadership and urged them to overthrow the government of Chief Minister Baloch.

Also read: Cracks appear in Balochistan coalition govt

“Our legislators are being ignored in terms of development funds and other administrative matters,” one of the legislators, who declined to be named, told Dawn.com.

PML-N’s Balochistan chief Nawab Sanaullah Zehri has repeatedly expressed reservations that his party members were being ignored by the CM Secretariat. “CM Secretariat has been turned into a political party's secretariat,” Zehri lamented.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had handed over the Balochistan government to Baloch and Pakhtun nationalists in accordance to the Marri Declaration soon after the May 11 elections.

“Despite being in majority, we handed over power to nationalists,” Khawaja Saad Rafique told reporters today.

Since then, PML-N legislators have not been feeling comfortable with what they claim being led by a minority political party in the province.

“Minority has been imposed on majority,” Asim Kurd Gailo, an independent member who later joined PML-N said.

The visiting delegation also held a meeting with Chief Minister Baloch and discussed all ways and means to find an amicable solution of issues relating to the coalition government.

A breakthrough was yet to be made as the defiant PML-N lawmakers were bent upon removing the government of Dr Baloch.

However, the visiting PML-N leaders asked them to restrain since nationalists were given the government owing to sensitive situation in Balochistan, plagued by Baloch separatists’ violent attacks and growing radicalisation.

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