LARKANA: Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has warned that Sindh will not accept any other verdict on elections except the one ordering polls (for all assemblies) to be held on one day.

Judiciary would be solely responsible for the consequences if two elections were held separately in the country and Sindh would resist such a decision, said Khuhro.

He said at a press conference at Larkana Press Club on Thursday why the Supreme Court was not forming full court to resolve the issue.

He said that people stood ‘confused’ amid parliament and judiciary’s standoff as the apex court itself was currently divided over the issue of suo motu and general elections.

He said that the Supreme Court had not yet addressed the crux of the issue which was whether the dissolution of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies was legitimate. Therefore, he referred to the Election Act’s Article 69 and demanded elections should be held on one day, he said.

He asked why Sindh would go for premature polls and said holding two elections separately was a ‘big question mark’.

He said that PPP would contest election from its own platform. When Chief Justice appreciated Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s move for negotiations then why he did not condemn Imran Khan at the same time for skipping talks.

He said why a unilateral verdict was being imposed on the collective wisdom of the parliament and why political parties were being asked to hammer out consensus.

He said that Punjab and KP assemblies were dissolved without any cogent reason and Pervaiz Illahi had said on record that all relevant rules had been violated in the process of dissolution of the assembly.

Flanked by former district president PPP Abdul Fatah Bhutto, general secretary PPP Larkana city Khair Mohammad Shaikh and others, Khuhro He said that it was a big question to decide whether Punjab and KP assemblies had been dissolved rightly and where the May 14 date had come from and was it not the violation of the constitution.

Khuhro reiterated that holding elections on one day would be the only solution to the present crisis. At this juncture, the country was facing difficult situation, which it had never experienced before when political system was being traumatized in such a manner. The judiciary was interfering in the parliament’s authority which should not have happened, he said.

He said in answer to a question that Chief Justice was not Supreme Court in the same way as federal cabinet did not mean the prime minister. Supreme Court’s job was to deliver verdicts based on constitution and not to damage political system, he remarked.

He recalled that an elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged under a split verdict. Justices Naseem Hassan Shah and Anwarul Haq had admitted decades later that they were under pressure. It was unfortunate history of the country that the apex court had condoned four Martial Laws and even authorised military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf to amend the constitution which he had not asked for, he said.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2023