ISLAMABAD - Refusing to lend support to any government move to retreat from the stiff stance taken against the ban on NATO supplies and other issues of national importance, Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Ch Nisar Ali Khan said that his party has yet not decided on participating in the upcoming joint session of the Parliament, which would likely to take up these issues.
Talking to a group of media persons here on Monday afternoon, he said that they would not let the ruling coalition use the platform of the Parliament to further their personal or party interests instead of national interests. He said that their were reports that Government seemed to retreat on its stance of blockade on NATO supplies via Pakistan and had planned to settle the matter taking shield of the joint session of the Parliament, due in first week of the February.
Nisar said that the government could use the support of its allies for the purpose but PML-N would not become part of any decision against the national interest and that too under the cover of Parliament’s resolution.
He said that in the same manner his party would also think whether to attend the National Assembly session or not which would be called for passage of the 20th Constitutional Amendment providing cover to the Parliamentarians elected in by-polls from various parts of the country.
‘We will not support this Constitutional Amendment till the time the government will meet all the requisites and requirements for the establishment of free and independent Election Commission’, he stated.
Criticising the govt for its casual attitude toward serious matters, he said that the members of the Election Commission from provinces, which were finalised with mutual consent and consensus between the Prime Minister Gilani and him, were still waiting for the finalisation of their terms and conditions.
Putting down the ruling PPP on mat for their handling of the issues like NRO Implementation and memo cases, which have been keeping the whole nation on tenterhooks for quite long, he said that if the government hands are clean in these cases why they were attempting to create hindrances in the fair trial of the cases.
He charged that the ruling alliance had put in commission all the State machinery and resources to hinder the fair trial in these cases and to let the truth come to the fore.
About his party’s mass mobilisation campaign against the follies of the government, he announced that PML-N would be holding a public rally at Qasim Bagh Stadium in Multan on 17th of next month and would prove that people of southern Punjab were with them. Commenting on the recent statement of PTI Chairman Imran Khan wherein he had said that he would weed out corruption within 90 days time after coming into power, Nisar said that to prove strength of claim he(Imran Khan) should at least purge of his party from the NAB and corruption tainted leaders in 90 days.
He also mocked his statement about doubling the tax revenue of the country within one year time and said that how a person who had not paid a single penny in tax for 35 years when he had earned millions would make the people to pay taxes.
He also reminded Imran Khan that it was PML-N which had blocked the way of NRO passage from the Parliament by declaring it a black law and it was Mian Shahbaz Sharif who had become petitioner against this law in the Supreme Court.