ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader and former National Assembly deputy speaker Faisal Karim Kundi on Sunday called upon the relevant authorities to invoke Article 6 against those who violated the Constitution in the recent political crisis.

“Former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser recorded a black chapter in the history of the country by violating the Constitution on the directives of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan,” Mr Kundi said while speaking at a press conference.

The party’s information secretary, Shazia Atta Marri, was also present.

Mr Kundi said if the PTI parliamentarians wanted to resign from the parliament, they should go ahead and “we would hold by-elections”.

Kundi says by-polls to be held in case PTI lawmakers resigned; Marri insists Imran has to answer for wrongdoings

The PPP leader said it was strange that the entire team of former prime minister Imran Khan was in the parliament but he did not turn up because he did not want to face the opposition members.

The former deputy speaker said he (Imran) claimed that he was a sportsman but ran away from the political arena, adding that with the power of people, the united opposition threw Mr Khan out of the Prime Minister’s House in a constitutional way.

Mr Kundi also lashed out at former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and said he made a long speech just to be in the good books of Imran Khan.

He claimed that till late night, “Imran was begging for an NRO but the opposition was not ready to give him any relief for his wrongdoings”.

“We are ready to talk to the opposition (PTI) in the parliament but will never forgive Imran’s wrong policies which forced poverty-stricken people to form long queues to get their rights,” he added.

Speaking on the occasion, PPP Information Secretary Shazia Marri said: “We congratulate the Pakistani nation because today we have not only gotten rid of an incompetent and insensitive government, but also the selected one.”

She said citizens wanted relief as they were fed up with inflation and unemployment.

“PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had been struggling for two years to send the selected person home in a constitutional manner and today he has succeeded,” she said, adding that, “the PTI did many dramas to cling on to power and when the no-confidence motion was moved to remove the ‘selected people’ in a constitutional manner, they violated the Constitution”.

She said the PPP had made sacrifices for the supremacy of the Constitution and law and always spoke about their protection whereas Mr Khan was inciting people and trying to sell false statements.

“He (Imran) first has to answer about the wrongdoings he committed during the past three-and-a-half years; now he was trying to provoke people but we have foiled his nefarious designs to divide the nation,” the PPP information secretary said.

“It is strange that a former prime minister of Pakistan was praising Indians and the Modi government when innocent Kashmiris were suffering,” she said, adding that Narendra Modi’s hands were stained with the blood of Kashmiris.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2022