Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday met imprisoned senior party leader Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), claimed media reports.
According to sources, the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto inquired regarding the health of Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah and further discussed the PDM’s decision to resign from the assemblies.
Shah said that the PPP lawmakers had done an exemplary job after submitting resignations to the party leadership in a short span of time. He, however, said that the resignations will not be helpful in overturning the government. “PPP should always remember the example of 1985 elections [where it boycotted the electoral process],” he said.
It is pertinent to mention here that former opposition leader in National Assembly Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah on Monday said that he has submitted his resignation as a member of the parliament but it is not a solution.
Khursheed Shah, an MNA of the People’s Party from Sukkur was talking to the media after appearing before an accountability court hearing of assets reference against him. “Imran Khan deliberately refusing to talk with the opposition,” Shah said. “The rulers are moving towards dangerous political game instead of dialogue,” he further said.
“From the very first day whenever they were engaged for dialogue, they claimed the opposition demanding the NRO,” the PPP MNA said. “The nation should understand that Imran Khan has no authority to grant NRO to someone,” he added. “Only dialogue and the Parliament is the best way ahead for politics. All problems will be resolved with supremacy of the Parliament,” he said.
On the other hand, PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz said that the PDM will not enter into any kind of negotiations with the government. Taking to Twitter, Maryam said that the PML-N leadership backs PDM’s decision to avoid holding talks with the government, adding that “mini or grand dialogues hold no importance”.
پی ڈی ایم کا فیصلہ ہے کہ کوئی مذاکرات نہیں کیے جائیں گے۔ پاکستان مسلم لیگ ن کے قائد پوری طرح اس موقف کے ساتھ کھڑے ہیں۔ اس لیے کسی طرح کے مِنی یا گرینڈ ڈائیلاگ کی باتیں بے معنی ہیں۔ اس جعلی اور کٹھ پتلی حکومت کو کسی طرح کا این آر او نہیں ملے گا۔ یہ پوری قوم کا فیصلہ ہے۔
— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) December 25, 2020
“We will not give this fake and puppet government an NRO, this is the nation’s decision,” Maryam maintained.
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz last Wednesday asked the PML-N leadership to submit its lawmakers’ resignations to the speakers of the respective assemblies and stop wasting the nation’s time with hollow threats.
In a series of tweets, Shibli Faraz said that the opposition was demoralized as its movement had been completely fizzled out after the flop show in Lahore.
He maintained that their announcement for an ‘inflation march’ after the ‘long march’ was a manifestation of their ‘shrinking’ and ‘doomed’ agenda.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says confusion exists within PDM over various issues, including tendering resignations from the assemblies. “If they are really determined to resign, they should do it at the PDM meeting which is going to be held on Dec 8. Nobody will stop them from doing so,” he challenged the 11-party opposition alliance at a press conference on Sunday.
Read More: PDM is upping the ante in its mission to overthrow Imran Khan’s government
“The PDM is not a natural alliance. It lacks ideological harmony as each component has a different agenda,” he said. He said that the PDM leadership had been invited to discuss the corona-related situations and devise a policy in this regard with consensus but they didn’t turn up.
Opposition’s relationship with Government
The Opposition’s relationship with the government has been patchy since the time PM Khan assumed the office. However, the situation got intense after corruption cases against the Sharif and Zardari families were filed in the courts. An All Parties Conference (APC) was called in Islamabad on September 20 where Nawaz Sharif, former prime minister, addressed the participants and slammed the country’s establishment for political engineering.
However, after holding some rallies and speaking against the armed forces of Pakistan, PML-N seems to be desperate to hold talks with the establishment.
On November 12, PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz said that her party is willing to hold talks with the military establishment, however, only under the condition that the PTI government is shown the door. Her remarks came during an interview with BBC Urdu.
After Maryam Nawaz’s demand to the establishment to step in for a “Charter of Democracy”, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, a senior leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), has asked the judiciary to help politicians initiate a national dialogue to let democracy flourish in the country.
Read More: Is PDM a product of poor governance?
Khawaja Asif was speaking to Asma Shirazi of AAJ News when he suggested the judiciary to play a role in order to end the ongoing anti-government protests under the flag of the PDM.
Political analysts are of the view that the PML-N leadership failed to generate public support for its anti-army narrative which has now forced it to hold talks with the establishment. “PML-N did not get the expected support from the PPP leadership. The game seems to be over now,” a reliable source in PML-N told GVS.