KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) today (Monday) rejected the show-cause notice issued by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), asking party’s lawmakers to resign from their positions in the opposition alliance.
Flanked by party leaders, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto held a news conference to speak about the matters that came under discussion during the recently-held Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting of the party.
Bilawal said PPP’s stance that the Opposition should not abandon the Parliament and the Senate battleground had been vindicated. “If the PPP had boycotted the Senate and by-elections, then it would have harmed democracy,” he added.
The PPP chairman said those who wanted to resign from the Parliament, should do so. “However, no one should try to impose their will or their dictation on any other political party,” he added.
“PPP will continue in its firm, consistent Opposition to the selected government that has been ongoing since day one and has not broken for a single day,” stressed Bilawal.
Bilawal claimed the CEC maintained that resignations from the assemblies should be an “atom bomb, last resort” option. “We think that this stance has proven to be correct, that we must not abandon parliament, the electoral battleground,” he added.
“The PPP demands an unconditional apology to the ANP and to the PPP for this obnoxious attitude,” Bilawal said, adding that there was no concept of show-cause notices in democratic alliances.
“We condemn the politics of Opposition against members of the Opposition,” he said. The PPP chairperson said his party’s doors were open for all other parties, adding that there should be a “working relationship” among them.
Referring to the IMF deal, Bilawal said that the deal consistently targets the poor people of Pakistan, adding that the government was putting the burden on the shoulders of the poor.
“Neither the details of the PTI’s deal with the IMF have been shared with the people or their representatives,” he said, adding, “Whatever knowledge we derived about is was due to the IMF’s documents.”
He blamed the government for conducting “a historic attack” on the country’s economic independence, saying that through the draft State Bank of Pakistan ordinance, the government was ensuring that the central bank does not answer to the country.
