SUKKUR: Leader of the Oppo­si­tion in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah has said that the system cannot be changed by brandishing bottles of petrol and issuing ultimatums.

Would it be wise for him or Imran Khan to use bottles of petrol to force Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to tender resignation, asked Mr Shah in a clear reference to PML-F MPA Nusrat Saher Abbasi’s desperate attempt to extract an apology from provincial minister Imdad Pitafi, who used a double entendre against her in the Sindh Assembly on Friday.

Mr Shah was speaking at a function for distributing sewing machines among the poor and deserving women organised by a charitable organisation here on Monday.

He called it a wrong precedent and said that if anybody was hurt by some remarks in the Sindh Assembly then the right way for one was to accept his mistake and for the other to pardon.

Exchanges between assembly members were often misreported or presented out of context, he complained.

He said that they had been in parliament for the past 30 years and they knew there was nothing new or offending if a speaker called members to his or her chamber.

Mr Shah said that Federal Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali himself was a hurdle to the implementation of National Action Plan. Many banners inscribed with corruption charges against Chaudhry Nisar were hanging in Rawalpindi, he was therefore the one who should go to court and get himself cleared, he said.

He said that some ministers who were earlier part of Gen Musharraf’s regime and were themselves involved in corruption were now accusing opposition parties of corruption.

After the BBC, a German newspaper had also published the documents of property held by prime minister’s daughter Maryam Nawaz in London, he said, adding what more proofs were being awaited now.

At another function for distributing auto-loader motorcycles to date producers of Sukkur and Khairpur under the Sindh Agriculture Growth Project, Mr Shah said that cold storage facilities should be built to promote date production in Sukkur and Khairpur and maintain their standard and quality.

Talking to media persons, he said Pakistani dates were in high demand in European markets. The dates therefore should be kept in cold storage and packaged according to international standards to make them exportable and earn maximum foreign exchange, he said.

He said he was hopeful the auto-loader motorcycles given to the deserving date growers would help promote the date sector.

The federal government had recently ended subsidy on fertiliser which was unfair to growers and peasants, he said.

If the government did not take back the decision then a protest would be held outside parliament and it would continue till peasants’ problems were resolved, he warned.

Published in Dawn January 24th, 2017