Why wait till Friday, questions Sanaullah
The Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb on Saturday said “courage” was required to dissolve assemblies and not “dates.”
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad after Imran’s announcement, she accused the former prime minister of “creating a ruckus” regarding the dissolution of assemblies so that “he can protect the theft he conducted during his tenure”.
“They are creating this ruckus so that other issues against him in the form of foreign funding, cypher and Toshakhana can be suppressed,” she said.
She asked Imran why he didn’t dissolve the assemblies “when Gen (R) [Qamar Javed] Bajwa was not letting him work and hold the corrupt accountable”.
“You have protected your theft through the power of these assemblies,” she said. “The corruption in KP will also come to light when the assemblies are dissolved.”
“You should have dissolved the assemblies today,” the information minister said. “What are you waiting for? Why wait till Friday?”
She maintained that Imran “can never dissolve the assemblies because they provide a cover for his corruption”.
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, in an interview to a news channel, questioned why there was a need to wait till next week.
Rana Sanaullah said: “I can’t understand what are they waiting to do till next Friday. If they have decided then they should dissolve the assemblies today.”
He alleged that the PTI and the PML-Q “will try to find an excuse that some no-confidence motion appears or a direction from the governor arrives” so Punjab Chief Minister Parvez Elahi could “have an excuse” to continue his tenure.
He questioned the logic behind this “drama” of waiting till next week if the two parties had actually decided to dissolve the assemblies. “Sign the summaries and send them,” the interior minister challenged.
Questioned on whether the PML-N would submit a no-confidence motion in the Punjab Assembly to block the dissolution, Sanaullah admitted that a section of the PML-N’s parliamentary party held that opinion.
The interior minister added that the party leadership and supremo Nawaz Sharif would make the final decision on the government’s response in the next day or two.
Meanwhile, Adviser to Prime Minister on Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan Qamar Zaman Kaira questioned what stopped the PTI from taking the dissolution step a month ago.
“What was stopping them today? They should have stood up today and announced [the dissolution] and went and submitted the summaries in the assemblies.”
He said the other camp was perhaps “hoping of a middle path” to appear from somewhere to provide some “facesaving”. Kaira expressed confusion that why the PTI would take a step a week later which it was not prepared to do so today.
