Senior politician and a leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) Hamid Nasir Chattha on Monday asked the Pakistan People's Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari to impress on his coalition partners in Punjab to adopt those good traditions in the Punjab Assembly which have been established in the National Assembly.
Talking to Business Recorder at a protest camp set up by the PML-Q in the premises of Punjab Assembly, Chattha said that the PPP leadership has established good traditions in the National Assembly, which its coalition partners should also follow.
The PML-Q legislators boycotted the Punjab Assembly budget session on Monday and set up a protest camp to lodge their protest against the non-issuance of notification of the leader of opposition in the Punjab Assembly. The PML-Q had already nominated former Punjab Minister Chaudhry Zaheer ud Din as its candidate for the slot of leader of the opposition in the Punjab Assembly. However, a group of the 22 PML-Q forward block legislators want their candidate to be nominated for the slot.
Chattha said the way in which the long march ended has caused a set back to the lawyers movement. Now the lawyers' leadership has lost its credibility to restart the movement, he viewed. To a question, he said it appears that the coalition government in Punjab is afraid of opposition and, therefore, they want a friendly opposition.
Answering another question, Chattha said in order to address issues like energy crises, escalating price hike, flour crisis etc, "macro minds" are needed which he added are not visible at federal and provincial levels.
Other legislators of the PML-Q including Chaudhry Zaheer uddin said all the other provincial assemblies have nominated opposition leaders but in the Punjab the slot is lying vacant. "We also want to play our due role in the Provincial Assembly and committed with democracy, but hurdles are being created. The ruling coalition in the Punjab should give up undemocratic practices of harassing the opposition members," they said.