ISLAMABAD: PPP leader Khursheed Shah on Wednesday claimed that the caretaker set-up was an extension of the PML-N since many of its loyalists were part of the interim cabinet led by caretaker premier Anwaarul Haq Kakar.

“As presently, it is virtually PML-N’s government [in power] therefore we are lodging a complaint with the N-League regarding the unjustified treatment meted out to the PPP,” Mr Shah said at a press conference.

He said some bureaucrats, who have close affiliation with the PML-N, were made part of the cabinet of the caretaker set-up. “Everybody knows who is Dr Tauqir Shah, incumbent principal secretary to the PM, as he had also served in the same position when Shehbaz Sharif was the prime minister during the PDM government,” he added.

Similarly, Ahad Cheema is a former special assistant to Shehbaz Sharif and Fawad Hassan Fawad served as the principal secretary to ex-PM and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif. Both of them have been made part of the interim cabinet.

The PPP leader said there were disparities in the lead-up to the general elections, blaming both PML-N and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for not providing his party a level-playing field to the PPP. “We are not being given a level playing field and those who are not giving us this basic right will be responsible if anything goes wrong,” he said without elaborating.

The PPP leader lamented that posting and transfers at a mass scale had been undertaken in the bureaucracy of Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but nothing happened in Punjab.

He said the chief secretaries and police chiefs removed from these provinces have not been posted anywhere. In response to another question, the PPP lea­der claimed all development sch­emes in Sindh had been halted while such schemes were still under progress in Punjab.

The PPP supported PML-N in difficult times during the PTI regime and remained an ally in the PDM government at the expense of its political capital, he added.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2023