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HYDERABAD, Sept 8: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal deputy secretary-general Liaquat Baloch has urged Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali to convene a meeting of heads of political parties without delay to finalize the constitutional amendment formula.
He was speaking at a public gathering while inaugurating a medical diagnostic centre established by the Al-Khidmat Foundation in unit-8, Latifabad, here on Monday.
Mr Baloch said out of 29 points of the Legal Framework Order, the National Assembly was ready to accept 22 points and on the seven controversial points the MMA and the government had evolved a joint formula which was to be given a final shape by heads of various political parties.
He said the formula would be put up before parliament for final approval after it was okayed by political parties’ heads.
The MMA leader said President Gen Pervez Musharraf had created the constitutional crisis in the country by introducing what he called extra-constitutional measures.
He claimed that when the president could not get the desired results in the last year election, he made the LFO a part of the Constitution. However, the nation had refused to accept the LFO as no individual, and only parliament, had the authority to amend the Constitution, he further said.
Mr Baloch, who is also the Jamaat-i-Islami Naib Amir, said the MMA had shown the path to extricate the country from the crisis. He reiterated that the MMA would launch a movement against the government if it did not give up its stubborn attitude on the issue.
He said Gen Musharraf had given nothing to the country except for price hike and unemployment and added that problems of education and health had multiplied during his regime.
The MMA leader said after destruction of Afghanistan, President Musharraf abandoned the Kashmir issue. After the Camp David talks, the president had also agreed to recognize Israel and send troops to Iraq. He said this was a violation of the policy introduced by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
He hailed the Al-Khidmat Foundation for setting up the medical centre and for its services in the cause of the underprivileged.
He said during the current year the Al-Khidmat had spent Rs1 billion on welfare of the poor. He said the foundation had established health centres, hospitals, maternity homes, computer centres, schools and Madaris throughout the country. He said it would also provide ambulances and funeral vehicles.
Sindh Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan president MNA Sahibzada Abdul Khair Mohammad Zubair said the MMA had thrown the ball in the government court and it was up to President Musharraf now to rescue the country from the constitutional crisis.
MPA Abdur Rehman Rajput, Shaikh Shaukat Ali and others also spoke on the occasion.
PPP: Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur, PPP, MNA, has said the unnatural alliance between various political parties, which have been inducted into power, have pushed the country into crisis, and added that power should be handed over to the majority party — the PPP — which alone was in a position to resolve the problems of the people and extricate the country from crisis.
In a statement faxed to Dawn on Sunday, Mr Talpur said that the government had miserably failed in developing consensus among the people on national projects which had created disharmony among the federating units.
He said that instead of raising the issue of the Kalabagh Dam, the need of the hour was to resolve the contentious constitutional issues with a view to creating an atmosphere of “national thinking”.
He said that all the problems could be resolved on the floor of the parliament through debate.
He, however, regretted that the government was not even prepared to accept the right of dissent, which was an inherent right of the opposition.
Mr Talpur said that, on the one hand, the trumpet was being blown about the increase in foreign exchange reserves and exports, and, on the other, the increase in the prices of consumer goods had made the lives of the people miserable.
He claimed that an unnatural alliance was forged between various political parties “to keep the PPP away from the corridors of power”.
He claimed that these alliances had only created crisis in the country and the only way out was to hand over power to the PPP “which alone could deliver the goods”.
