Shortly after former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan offered the government to hold talks over the next general elections, the government out rightly rejected any conditional talks.
Federal Minister for Planning and Pakistan Muslim League-N senior leader Ahsan Iqbal on Friday categorically rejected Imran’s offer, saying nothing can be settled if talks are conditional.
He said that government would conduct elections after the incumbent government completes its constitutional term.
Ahsan Iqbal said that two major provinces of the country are still reeling from heavy damage caused by floods and thousands remain displaced.
In such a situation, he said, they cannot think of going to polls. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who spent the day in Lahore in wake of political tensions ratcheting up, has decided to consult allies on former prime minis ter and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan’s offer of talks on holding general elections in the country.
Shebbaz was given a briefing by parties who are part of the Pakistan Democratic Movement on their strategy to deal with the PTI chairman’s threat of dissolving the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to force the government into holding fresh general elections.
During the briefing, PML-N leaders said that motion for vote of no-confidence was ready to be moved ahead of the provincial assembly’s dissolution.
“The option for implementing governor rule was also ready,” they told the prime minister, adding that the “governor can at anytime ask for a vote of confidence in the Punjab Assembly.”
The PML-N leaders also claimed that Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi has already lost a majority in the assembly. The latest offer by Imran was also reviewed.
