ISLAMABAD: PML-N leader and Federal Minister Javed Latif has warned of bloodshed if general elections were held with party supremo Nawaz Sharif out of the race.

Addressing the National Assem­bly on Tuesday, the minister who holds no portfolio lashed out at the judiciary for what he called its insistence on holding elections.

Mr Latif said there was no talk of the Constitution or law when his party’s leadership was kept out of elections to facilitate PTI Chairman Imran Khan.

Like previous assembly sessions in recent days, lawmakers in the house continued to assail judges in the wake of the ongoing tussle between the executive and judiciary over the polls issue.

Without naming the PML-N supremo, the minister said his party’s leadership was kept out of elections in 2000, 2008 and 2018.

“We tolerated all this, but if there will be any effort again to keep my leadership, Nawaz Sharif, out of the election race in 2023 then who will accept those results,” he asked, rhetorically.

“If elections are held in 2023 without Nawaz Sharif, then a line will be drawn with blood which no one will be able to erase.”

He also expressed surprise over the judges’ insistence on holding elections despite the poor economic and security situation “only because of the ego of one person”, a thinly-veiled reference to PTI chief Imran Khan.

“Those who lecture on the supremacy of law and Constitution should tell us as to who had provided constitutional cover to martial laws? Was it parliament or the judges sitting in the adjacent building [SC]?” asked the minister.

Mr Latif recalled that Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarrar had recently confessed he was “forced by a former head of an institution” to vote for the elevation of two junior judges to the Supreme Court.

He claimed that former CJP Sajjad Ali Shah had also pressurised the then PML-N government to appoint junior judges and even attempted to get his date of birth changed to secure an extension.

The minister said former Islamabad High Court chief justice Shaukat Siddiqui had openly revealed how benches were constituted and how former ISI chief Faiz Hameed had met him, but he was removed.

Bills introduced

Amid these political recriminations, the lower house of the parliament saw the introduction of eight private members’ bills during the lowly-attended sitting. The bills were referred to the concerned committees by Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf.

The introduced bills include the Islamabad Capital Territory State Counsels Remuneration Bill; the Drugs (Amendment) Bill; the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils (Amendment) Bill; the ICT Criminal Prosecution Service Bill; the Allied Health Professionals Council (Amendment) Bill and the Pakistan Red Crescent Society Bill.The speaker adjourned the sitting of the house till Wednesday (today) as the government has decided to drag the session because of its ongoing stand-off with the judiciary.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2023