ISLAMABAD – Minister for Information Broadcasting and National Heritage Senator Pervaiz Rashid on Tuesday urged the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to come back to the parliament and play its role in parliamentary politics.
Speaking in a private TV channel, he said that people gave mandate to the PTI in the 2013 elections for resolving their problems and raise their issues in the parliament by putting questions before the government for welfare projects of a common man. He regretted that the PTI opted against the public mandate and went out of the parliament.
The minister said that the government would give answer of every single query of the PTI, if the queries were made at the appropriate forum, which was the parliament. He said that Pakistan could not afford the politics of confrontation and that the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) government had been making efforts to remove miss-perceptions of the PTI from day one.
He said that It was evident from the fact that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had written a letter for the formation of the judicial commission before August 14 to probe the allegations of rigging in the general elections 2013. “PTI even had not started the long-march and staged sit-in, when the prime minister announced the judicial commission to resolve the issue amicably,” the minister added.
Pervaiz welcomed the agreement on terms of references (ToRs) between the government and the PTI teams on formation of the judicial commission. He said that the prime minister was always forthcoming to remove miss-perceptions of the PTI, adding “Finance Minister Ishaq Dar moved forward the spirit exhibited by the prime minister by giving it a practical shape in the form of achieving unanimity on ToRs.”
He said that the prime minister has taken all parliamentary leaders into confidence about the ToRs of the judicial commission agreed between the government and the PTI. He said that all the parliamentary parties have appreciated the agreement on ToRs and their leaders were of the view that it would help strengthen democracy in Pakistan.
Pervaiz said that the PTI had not made the allegations, which it had been leveling in public meetings like illegal printing of ballot papers, alleged role of the returning officers and the speech of the PML-N leader, part of their petitions filed before different election tribunals. He said that the PTI candidates had been filing complaints against individuals alleging rigging in their respective constituencies but they could prove nothing.
To a question, he said that the matter regarding incorrect filling of the form 14 or its non-availability at some polling stations falls in jurisdiction of the election tribunals (ETs). He said several individual petitions were being heard by ETs but nothing could be proved with regard to rigging in the general elections. He added that the government was duty-bound to satisfy the persons filing rigging complaints at any forum.
To a question, he clarified that ETs would continue their proceedings in the petitions filed by individuals and that the judicial commission would work within its parameters. To another question, the minister said that there were threats to almost all political parties participating in the general elections 2013, adding, the PML-N itself received a letter from the concerned security department to avoid holding a public meeting, which was the last gathering of the party campaign. “The threat was not party specific rather all the political parties were facing the same situation,” he added.
No comments:
Post a Comment