PESHAWAR: All component parties of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) are fully prepared for the proposed Mehngai march on Islamabad, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Sunday.

Talking to reporters after chairing a meeting of the Pakistan Democratic Move­ment’s Khyber Pakh­tun­khwa chapter at the JUI-F Secretariat to discuss the line of action for the proposed march towards the capital on March 23, Maulana Fazl said the participants agreed that the date of the march would not be changed due to the second phase of local government elections.

Leaders of component parties of the opposition alliance Murtaza Abbasi, Amir Muqam and Sikandar Sher­pao attended the meeting.

Maulana Fazl dispelled the impression that his party’s impressive performance in the local bodies election was because of the emerging situation in Afghanistan or deal with the establishment.

“We should not link results of the elections with the internal or external factors,” he said, adding that the PDM always demanded free and fair elections.

He said the impartial role of the establishment ensured the success of a majority of JUI-F candidates in the recently held local government polls in KP.

“The establishment remained neutral in the process and we appreciate its role,” he said when asked whether his party had been given the level playing field in the polls or the establishment fulfilled the reported commitment it made with the Maulana at the time protest sit-in in Islamabad in December 2019.

He was optimistic that the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i- Insaf (PTI) would again suffer defeat in the second phase of the LG elections in KP. He said that victory of the JUI-F in the election was the victory of PDM and the people of KP expressed no trust in the PTI government and its policies.

“The PTI will bite the dust in the second phase,” he remarked.

When asked about the Taliban’s removal of fencing on the Afghan border, the PDM president said that Pakistan should be extremely careful about new developments on the western border.

He said that Afghanistan needed peace and stability after decades of war and we (Islamabad) should not be part of any problem on the western border.

He said that some forces were trying to shift tension from the eastern border (India) towards the western border.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2022