LAHORE, March 8 Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf launched a frontal attack on the PML-N leadership on Sunday and announced that the time for reconciliation was over.

“The Pakistan People`s Party has been showing restraint for the past two months to avoid confrontation with the PML-N but from now onwards it will be tit-for-tat,” he said.

Addressing a news conference at the Chief Minister`s Secretariat in his capacity as PPP`s Deputy Secretary-General, he said the PPP would not remain quiet on the character assassination of President Asif Zardari who was the party chief and would pay back the PML-N in the same coin. The PPP and the PML-N would now be on different paths, he added.

“The PPP cannot be browbeaten by threats of long march and sits-in. Holding protest meetings, long marches and sit-in are the opposition`s democratic right but we will not spare anyone taking the law in his own hands,” the minister said.

He said the politics of confrontation, hatred, opposition for the sake of opposition would do the country no good and result in horse-trading, instead of promoting democratic norms.

He said Punjab would soon have a government of the PPP and its allies but it would be established in a democratic manner. “We will hold talks with the parties and not individuals, honour the mandate and sit with opposition if we fail to gain majority in the Punjab,” said Raja Pervez.

Answering a question, the minister said that governor`s rule had to be imposed in the Punjab to fill in the vacuum caused by the court decision. “We too were not in favour of governor`s rule but imposed it as a stopgap measure because there was no chief executive or cabinet in the Punjab.”

Terming the Charter of Democracy the best document even today, he said it should be implemented in letter and spirit. But the environment was not conducive to its implementation.”

APP adds The PPP leader accused the Sharif Brothers of working on an agenda that was fanning conflict because they were under the misconception that it would benefit them.

He said Asif Ali Zardari was elected President through a long democratic process and not through back-door channels. Those who did not accept the president, parliament, judiciary

and the constitution of Pakistan, were interested in creating unrest and nothing else, he observed.

He assured that the PPP being a big political party in the country would stick to its policy of following the democratic procedure for forming the government.

The federal minister was accompanied at the press conference byl Minister for Agriculture Nazar Muhammad Gondal and PPP leader Zikria Butt.