LAHORE, March 6: The PPP doesn’t see any justification for extending the term of the existing assemblies. However, in case the government takes any decision in this regard, the party will devise appropriate strategy to deal with the situation, party’s provincial president Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Tuesday.

“The present regime is responsible for the prevailing bad situation, and things will start improving once it quits,” he told a questioner at a ceremony at which Chaudhry Saeed Iqbal of Faisalabad announced his decision to join the party.

Qasim Zia, Khalid Kharal, Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas, Begum Abida Husain, Rana Aftab Ahmad Khan, Aurangzeb Burki, Farzana Raja, Raja Riaz, Naveed Chaudhry, Azma Zahid Bukhari, Sajjad Bukhari, Samiullah Khan and a number of other leaders were present.

Mr Qureshi said his party wanted free and fair elections held on time. In case the rulers held transparent and open polls, the PPP would not have to launch a movement. But any move to manipulate the results would bring the people on streets, he warned.

He dispelled the impression that the party did not have the capacity or will to launch an anti-government drive.

Replying to a question, he said, the PPP believed in politics of principles and would not let any turncoat in.

He said defectors who once thought that the PPP would be supplicating them to return to its fold were grossly mistaken.

The PPP leader, who recently met chairperson Benazir Bhutto, claimed that many in the ruling party had approached the PPP for permission to join. However, the party would stand by its principles, he added.

Rejecting the ruling party’s claims that it was in a position to sweep the next polls on the basis of its performance, Mr Qureshi argued that efforts being made to have the tenure of the existing assemblies extended contradicted the tall claims about the so-called performance.

The PPP leader said the performance of the ruling party was so disappointing that it would be routed in the polls.

Lashing out at the foreign policy of the government, he said all neighbours and the NATO commanders were making accusations that Pakistan was not doing enough to crush the militants.

This government had the “singular honour” of being mistrusted both at home and abroad, Mr Qureshi said.

He said the PPP was not asking for any concessions from the government for free and fair elections. The only thing the PPP wanted was adherence to the constitution and the rules of game laid down by it.

Begum Abida Husain, whose daughter Sughra Imam is a member of the Punjab Assembly from the ruling party’s platform, told a questioner that she (Sughra) would take a decision about her future after the dissolution of the assemblies. —Staff Reporter