Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Parliamentarian Lieutenant General Abdul Qadir Baloch (Retd) on Tuesday said that the country's political leaderships should sit together and launch dialogue process with disgruntled people to resolve the issue of Balochistan.
Participating in budget 012-13 debate, he said dialogue process in Balochistan could be launched only after the resolution of missing persons' issue. Earlier, Ahsan Iqbal of PML-N opened the general discussion on federal budget 2012-13 and after it the party announced boycott of the proceedings, but Abdul Qadir Baloch was especially allowed to take part in the budget discussion in spite of his party's boycott.
Taking part in the budget debate, Qadir Baloch said that forces against the political solution of the Balochistan crisis have become active again to sabotage the process. Opposition party that remained calm when its member was speaking left the House after Baloch finished his talk. But re-emerged in the House when it could not succeed to disrupt the proceedings by its routine tactic of pointing out the quorum as treasury side managed to bring back its members in the session thus completing the quorum.
However, government faced embarrassment at the fag end of the session when its ally MQM staged a walkout from the session in protest against the killing of brother of its MPA in Karachi on Tuesday as well as the PML-N women member of the house Shehnaz Sheikh also walked away from the session as a mark of protest against the absence of Federal Finance Minister and Secretary Finance during the budget debate.
PML-N again resorted to fierce protest by assembling before the dice of the Speaker raising slogans against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, President Asif Ali Zardari and the PPP government. The pandemonium triggered even Fata's MNA Munir Orakzai and Munawar Lal of MQM to show reluctance to take part in the budget debate. The PML-N members were in the middle of their protest when the chair adjourned the proceedings till Wednesday.
Earlier, Abdul Qadir Baloch said that the attitude of the PPP government shows that it has no love for the people of Balochistan, who have been subjected to injustices by past and present rulers. Baloch emphasised that right of the people of the province should be accepted on their resources by shunning the policy of treating the province as a colony as they should be treated equally.
Baloch suggested that the top leadership of all the political parties should put their heads together to find out some way out and said that cosmetic measures taken by the government would not serve the purpose. Earlier, Atiyya Inayatullah of PML-Q, while participating in the debate, termed the budget a positive sign for a democratic government. However, she noted that the budget could not be called perfect as it lacked some positive aspects in some areas.
She called for elimination of corruption in different public sector entities such as Pakistan Steel Mills, Railways and PIA. PPP's Nadeem Afzal Chan said both PPP and PML-N have failed to tackle the genuine issues of the masses. On a point of order, Seemi Arshad of PML-N objected to the closure of airport on the arrival of Malik Riaz, on Monday night.