• Rashid says there’s no room for confrontation in democracy
• Qureshi rules out minus-Imran formula

ISLAMABAD: Striking a reconciliatory note, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on Friday appealed to the dissident lawmakers to return to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), assuring them that they would not be questioned.

The minister suggested the disgruntled leaders of the PTI to visit their constituencies and consult their voters on what they thought about their decision. The members of the National Assembly belonging to the ruling party would regret their decision if they did not return, he added.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr Rashid, who heads the PTI’s ally Awami Muslim League, assured the dissident PTI MNAs that no one would say anything to them. “I appeal to them to return to the party,” he said.

The minister asked the estranged members as well as the allied parties to stand by Prime Minister Imran Khan at this critical juncture. The international powers did not want independent foreign policy in Pakistan, he told the presser.

Mr Rashid said bringing a no-confidence motion against the prime minister was the opposition’s right. He said there was no room for confrontation in democracy and nobody would face security issues while voting on it. He said 2,000 personnel of Pakistan Rangers and 1,000 of Frontier Constabulary were called in the capital to ensure security.

He said the opposition had announced that it would hold its rally on March 25 while Prime Minister Imran Khan would address a historic rally of the PTI on March 27 at D-Chowk. In view of Pakistan Day parade and OIC Foreign Ministers’ Summit, public holidays had already been announced from March 21 to 24, he said.

“We want to mutually decide these matters including the routes for rallies. There is no room for conflict in democracy,” he said, adding that the country could not afford political confrontation in view of its economic situation. He said directives had already been issued to the Islamabad deputy commissioner to decide routes of both the rallies.

He said he had moved a summary to the prime minister for imposing emergency and governor rule in Sindh earlier in the day but no decision had been made on the suggestion. “It was my personal view point that governor’s rule should be imposed in Sindh,” he said, adding that buying and selling of lawmakers was being carried out at the Sindh House openly.

Answering a question, he said it was not clear how many days the process of no-trust motion would take. The National Assembly speaker was in a better position to respond to this question, he said. But he asserted that the entire nation stood behind PM Khan, who would bring about a change in the country.

He said the government had received information about the presence of only about five to six PTI members at the Sindh House, but videos showed the number was nine to 12.

APP quoted Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi as saying that elected representatives were bound to make decisions according to their conscience. But he stressed that they must keep in view the aspirations and expectations of the people of their constituencies.

The parliament should not be harmed by its own custodians, he said.

The minister also rejected the idea of minus-one formula for the ruling PTI. “There is no room for minus one in the PTI,” he said, adding that the PPP and the PML-N, too, had never agreed to “minus one” in their respective party.

Mr Qureshi said speculations were made about government’s allies, but he had been consistently saying they would not quit the PTI. He said the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, a key ally of the PTI in the Centre and Punjab, “is a political family that makes political decisions, not emotional decisions” as they knew how much room the PML-Nawaz had for them.

The PML-N, he said, created hurdles in the PML-Q’s way in the 2018 general elections, and because the N-League had a majority in Punjab, it would remove the Chaudhrys from power whenever it wanted. Similarly, he said, everybody knew the treatment meted out to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement by the Pakistan Peoples Party in Sindh.

The minister said the opposition was repeating the politics of the 1990s, which was against the spirit of the Charter of Democracy.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2022