ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) has convened its leadership-level meeting on January 1st, 2021 in Lahore to discuss future strategy of the 11-party opposition alliance amid a clear division on issues such as participation in the upcoming by-elections, and on en masse resignations from assemblies.
According to a statement of the PDM spokesperson Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the PDM President, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who is also chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) has convened the leadership-level meeting on January 1st, 2021 at Raiwind, Lahore to discuss the future strategy of the anti-government movement.
The PDM sources said that apart from discussions on the future strategy of the opposition alliance, the meeting would also deliberate upon the unsettled issues such as Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)'s insistence on taking part in the upcoming by-elections and not resigning from the assemblies prior to the Senate elections.
To be chaired by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the meeting will be attended by PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and other top leadership of the PDM alliance, while former prime minister and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif is expected to participate via a video link.
The PDM has also warned of a 'long-march' towards Islamabad, if Prime Minister Imran Khan does not resign by January 31, 2021, a deadline which the government has already rejected.
In a statement with regard to the government ministers' criticism over the PDM leaders' speeches at Benazir Bhutto's death anniversary on Sunday, the PML-N Secretary-Information, Marriyum Aurangzeb, termed the federal ministers' presser as "the last shrieks of the petrified and dying corrupt government that had lost at all fronts".
"The defeated rented mouthpieces had once again stooped even lower than their previously set records of foul language, indecency, misconduct and crass talk to set new world records," she maintained.
She said that the government spokespersons had gathered to push for an 'NRO' for the 'corrupt' PTI government.
"Those who ranted against and cussed at the parliament from the container were begging the parliament for an 'NRO' to bury their terrible crimes against the country and its people. But no matter what the incompetent, unqualified, indecent and inept PTI hoard does, they won't be given an NRO," she added.
She said that the PDM would not negotiate with those who robbed public mandate, public sugar, flour, electricity, gas, and medicine.
"Those who looted people's Rs400 billion in sugar, Rs200 billion in flour, Rs122 billion in LNG, and over Rs500 billion in medicine are pleading for an 'NRO'," she claimed.
The PML-N spokesperson rejected all possibilities of any negotiated settlement, and asked the government not to offer any such proposals of dialogue.
"These proposals are actually a formal request for an 'NRO' for Imran Khan," she claimed.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020