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KARACHI: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah on Friday claimed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had ‘surrendered’ in 2014 and was set to resign when Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari convinced him otherwise in the name of democracy which ‘saved the parliament’.
The opposition leader has referred to the claims in the past regarding the 2014 sit-in staged by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), which paralysed the federal capital for more than 100 days and disrupted the work of government institutions.
However, Mr Shah’s critical remarks against the incumbent government today may have been intended to remind the PML-N of his party’s favour to Nawaz Sharif’s government in supporting it during the protests and sit-in.
“Mian Sahab [Nawaz Sharif] had surrendered and was about to resign in 2014,” Mr Shah told journalists in Kharian, where he went to attend the wedding of a daughter of former federal minister Qamar Zaman Kaira.
“It was us who said no — it’s the parliament’s war and we have to fight it. Asif Ali Zardari flew all the way to Raiwand to recognise Mr Nawaz as the prime minister.”
Three years later, he said, the prime minister and his party had become a threat to democracy by weakening the federation and violating provincial autonomy.
In reply to a question about the Sindh’s government decision to replace IG A.D. Khowaja, he said: “After the 18th Amendment, the provinces have the right to take such decisions and the federal government has no moral or legal ground to intervene. That’s why I said that democracy and federation, which we saved in 2014, are being weakened by the present government.”
Mr Shah also denounced the Sindh governor’s appreciation of the prime minister’s efforts in restoring peace to Karachi.
“I think he [Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair] overreacted,” he said. “The credit goes only to the Sindh government and the Pakistan Army. The Sindh government showed its will and the army executed that,” asserted Mr Shah.
Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2017
