ISLAMABAD: The steering committee of the nine-party opposition alliance – the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) – Monday, finalised its recommendations for approval by the senior party leaderships including the options of resignations from the assemblies, ‘longmarch’ towards Islamabad, and countrywide shutter-down and wheel-jam strike as part of its ongoing anti-government movement.
The steering committee, comprising representatives from all the nine opposition political parties, met here to give a final shape to the set of recommendations with regard to intensifying the anti-government protest movement.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, PDM spokesperson Hafiz Hamdullah said the meeting lasted four hours, which was attended by leaders from all the component parties. The meeting discussed the ways and means to intensify the ongoing anti-government movement, he added.
“The whole nation is suffering from a ‘deadly disease’ for the last three and a half years in the shape of Imran Khan and his government,” Hamdullah said, adding that the PDM has resolved to get rid of this ‘deadly disease.’
He said all the component parties of the PDM have framed recommendations with regard to further intensifying the anti-government drive that would be presented for discussion and final approval in today’s (Tuesday’s) meeting of the PDM senior-level leadership.
He said that the today’s meeting to be chaired by PDM president Maulana Fazlur Rehman and with party heads of the PDM allied parties in attendance, would deliberate upon the recommendations and would announce the final decisions to the media accordingly.
He said the recommendations include, the option of a ‘longmarch’ towards Islamabad, resignations from the assemblies, sit-in protest, major protest rallies in Lahore and Gwadar, countrywide shutter down and wheel-jam strike, besides protest rallies, and road caravans in all the provinces.
However, the final decision on all these recommendations would be taken by the meeting of party heads today (Tuesday), he added.
Asked about the possibility of the ‘longmarch’ this year, he said there are different proposals with regard to holding of the longmarch, either in December, January, February or in March.
He added that the PDM would continue its protest both within and outside the parliament.
Commenting on the PDM’s Saturday protest rally in Peshawar, he rejected the impression that the rally was a failed show. He explained that various parties are engaged in the local bodies’ elections in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa “that’s why it was not massively participated by the people.”
To another question about the passage of controversial legislation by the joint sitting of the parliament on November 17, he said the PDM has decided to challenge the legislation in the Supreme Court.
Responding to another query about the allegations levelled by former chief judge of the Gilgit-Baltistan apex court against former chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar and his alleged leaked audio call, the PDM spokesperson maintained that there was a big question on the credibility of the judiciary. “We, the opposition and the PML-N leadership, had been expressing our reservations about the ‘injustice’ done [with the Sharifs],” he maintained, adding that it was up to the judiciary and the judges to give explanation.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021