Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan spoke against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) decision to attend the meeting of an “unelected person” instead of coming to the scheduled meeting between the government delegation and the members of the opposition.
Speaking in the National Assembly (NA) on Tuesday, he said, “We waited for you. We did not know where you were … maybe at a place where an unelected person was chairing [a meeting] of some 100 MNAs.”
He stated that the PML-N often cites ‘vote ki izzat do’ (respect the vote), but in this case they attended a meeting chaired by an unelected person, referring to the party vice president.
“Yesterday you gave a lot of respect to the vote when you went in front of an unelected person [instead] of this sacred Parliament House,” he said.
Khan stated that the PML-N seems to “remember the Constitution in front of the mic but forget everything outside of parliament”, adding that the meeting had hoped to reduce the tensions between the ruling party and the opposition, but this action has made the gap wider.
“You said last week you would come and [cooperate in running] the parliament more smoothly [and] discussion would take place in the office of the NA speaker. We went to the NA speaker’s office, PPP [Pakistan People’s Party] also came, other people from the opposition came. If [any party did not come], it was the PML-N.”
“It was decided in our (government-opposition) Friday’s meeting that we will meet again on Monday but the opposition did not meet its commitment,” he added.
The government and opposition were scheduled to resume the second round of talks for the smooth sailing of the current session of the NA, however, the party reportedly gave a cold response to the government by refusing to attend the meeting.
Reportedly, the meeting had been denied after the NA speaker tried to block the entry of Maryam Nawaz to the parliament.
PPP’s Syed Naveed Qamar went to the chamber of the speaker but when the PML-N did not appear he also came back. When contacted, Syed Naveed Qamar said the meeting could not take place as the parliamentary party meeting of the PML-N was going on.
“We cannot meet the government without PML-N,” he told a local news outlet.
Ali Muhammad Khan, while speaking with a local news outlet, hinted that the ruling party would extend another invitation to the PML-N in the coming days.
However, it is pertinent to mention here that Maryam, during the meeting at the Parliament House, said that that the government was “pleading with the opposition” for dialogue and that the latter had decided not to talk to them.
