PPP Senator Sherry Rehman on Thursday said that although her party had offered the PTI to form the government together, the latter did not “take the responsibility”.

In a video statement issued today, Rehman said: “PPP had offered them (PTI) to hold talks […] this has been said repeatedly. They were also told ‘come, form the government and take responsibility’ but they always step back from taking responsibility.”

The senator’s statement echoes those made by PPP leader Nadeem Afzal Chan in a TV interview this week, where he said his party approached the PTI but the latter refused to hold talks.

PML-N leader and former interior minister Rana Sanaullah had also stated the same earlier this month.

Recalling President Asif Ali Zardari’s parliamentary address a week ago — where he had called for moving on from the polarisation plaguing the country’s politics — Rehman reiterated that the PPP wanted to “take the country forward by holding dialogues with everyone”.

She stressed that “everyone will need to take responsibility at the moment.”

The PPP leader’s call for reconciliation and dialogue with the PTI comes after repeated sloganeering seen in recent National Assembly and Senate sessions, where the opposition lawmakers have protested against alleged rigging in the general elections and Imran’s detention.

In her statement today, Rehman said: “So, we say again that come and make the Parliament functional, especially the Senate. […] We want to accommodate everyone and also have the courage to listen to everyone’s valid demands.

“This was also President Zardari’s message and I think that it should be everyone’s message. If you deviate from it, then you are giving Pakistan a clear message, which is ‘we just want incitement. If I am, no one else exists. My way or the highway’,” she added.

The senator said the PPP was trying to “make the entire Parliament functional” so there could be a “new beginning”.

Highlighting that Parliament was the basis of democracy where “legislation [and] accountability” took place, she warned that not making it functional would lead to “further prolonged incitement”.

“Do not add fuel to the fire,” the senator advised, adding that it was imperative to “find the solution in tough times and not talk of only one’s own point”.

Regarding the PTI’s allegations of rigging in the February 8 general elections, the PPP senator noted that her party had also filed more than 50 complaints in election tribunals and there was a procedure to follow for everything.

“They say that scandalous level of rigging has been done against us. How many complaints have you filed in the tribunals then? 22? But not more than that,” she said.

Rehman called on the PTI to not turn Parliament into a “battleground” and to give a “message of maturity” that the party understood the challenges faced by the nation and prioritised them.

“If you want to prioritise the Constitution, the people and the public, then instead of movements — which failed badly in the past and only put your economy in further crisis — protest in a [proper] manner, for which parliamentary instruments exist,” Rehman said.

She urged the PTI lawmakers to perform their duties in the relevant committees, emphasising that “keeping the country at a boiling point was to no one’s benefit, especially an opposition party’s”.

The PTI, in collaboration with five other opposition parties, is set to launch a mass protest movement against what it calls the “worst-ever rigging” in the general elections and subsequent by-polls, on Friday.