Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Central Secretary-General and Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an opposition parties’ alliance, Vice President Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri said on Saturday that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) would have to respond to the show-cause notice issued to it by the PDM on account of dodging the alliance.
In an interview with 24NewsHD TV channel, Maulana Ghafoor Haideri said when different political parties formed an alliance, it was incumbent upon each of these parties to accept the decisions taken by the alliance’s leadership.
He said that the PDM had taken the decision, whether of its free will or on the insistence of PPP, that the opposition parties would vote for its leader and former prime minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani for the seat of a senator from Islamabad.
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“We not only accepted the PPP’s decision but also supported Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani in the Senate elections wholeheartedly,” he said, and added, “We even threw our weight behind PPP when the latter insisted that since Gilani was a senior political figure, he be nominated as a candidate for the seat of Senate chairman.”
“But when it came to the election of Leader of the Opposition in Senate, the PPP managed to get Gilani elected as the opposition leader with the support of parties part of the ruling coalition, and that, too, without taking the PDM into confidence,” senior JUI-F leader regretted.
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Haideri said by doing so, the PPP had clearly gone against the PDM’s decisions. “And if today PPP has bypassed the opposition parties’ alliance, it may do so in future as well,” he said.
PDM vice president said Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif had come out of the jail only recently, and it was his desire that the opposition parties worked together. “Shehbaz’s intentions are good. But this does not mean these could be translated into reality,” he said, and added, “If constituent parties of an alliance cannot respect each other decisions, then there is no way they could get along with each other.”
Reporter Usman Khan