MQM coordination committee member Raza Haroon said the issue would not affect the new relationship between the two parties. “We have not formed any alliance. We are two different parties and of course have difference of opinion on different issues. However, while sitting on opposition benches we will try to find common grounds to oppose the anti-people policies of the government,” he said. — File Photo

ISLAMABAD: Despite their recent decision to play the role of a ‘combined opposition’ in parliament, the Pakistan Muslim League-N and Muttahida Qaumi Movement are poles apart on the issue of the restoration of the commissionerate system.

“We are with the MQM on the issue of the law and order situation in Karachi, but certainly cannot support its viewpoint on the issue of local government system in Sindh,” PML-N spokesman Ahsan Iqbal said on Sunday.

“How can we oppose a system we implemented in Punjab two years ago,” he said when asked to comment on an announcement by MQM’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Dr Farooq Sattar that his party would challenge in courts and the assemblies the decision to restore the system in Sindh.

The two parties had for the first time jointly requisitioned sessions of the Senate and the National Assembly on Friday on various issues, including recent violence in Karachi and the law and order situation in the country, after announcing that they would play the role of an effective and strong opposition in parliament.

Mr Iqbal said it was the right of the MQM to lodge its protest on any issue, but the PML-N considered the local bodies’ system a provincial matter.

MQM coordination committee member Raza Haroon said the issue would not affect the new relationship between the two parties. “We have not formed any alliance. We are two different parties and of course have difference of opinion on different issues. However, while sitting on opposition benches we will try to find common grounds to oppose the anti-people policies of the government,” he said.

When his attention was drawn towards the fact that the MQM had been left alone by all parties of the country on the issue, he said it did not matter and his party would continue to raise its voice for the rights of people and to uphold the Constitution.

Mr Ahsan Iqbal said the local government system comprising nazims had been introduced by former military dictator Pervez Musharraf to fulfil his political agenda.

He said the Punjab government had drafted new local bodies’ law and would table it before the provincial assembly after a briefing on it was given to the chief minister.

In reply to a question about a delay in the local bodies’ polls, the PML-N leader said that perhaps these had been delayed by provincial governments in the hope of early general elections. He said political parties generally did not like local bodies’ polls when general elections were close as this activity always caused fragmentations in parties.