Ijaz Kakakhel Islamabad
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Tues-day strongly criticized opposition benches, taking aim in particular at Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Yousuf Raza Gilani, calling him a “compro-mised leader”.
Speaking at Senate today, Qureshi responded to Gilani’s jibe, saying: “I am warning you, honorable members of the Senate that the opposition leader is a compromised leader, don’t rely on him as a leader of the opposition who is a sell-out.” Qureshi won-dered why the opposition could not see other ex-perienced politicians such as PPP Senators Raza Rabbani and Sherry Rehman in its ranks for the leadership role.
He accused Gilani of being elected a senator through “buying votes”, saying there were videos of Gilani’s son’s tampering votes in last year’s Senate elections. He also hit out at the PPP, recalling how it had initially agreed with the PML-N to back Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar for the office of opposition leader but later reneged.
Qureshi also doubted that Gilani, who had offered to quit from his opposition leader position on Monday, would go through with his resignation. “He lied, he will remain and take back the resignation and re-main stuck to this chair. This was a drama,” FM Qureshi railed repeatedly.
Gilani on Monday had pointed out that the agenda for Friday’s session was issued hours before it was slated to take place, arguing that lawmakers should have been given more time to discuss the legisla-tion. Qureshi today rejected Gilani’s excuse and slammed the opposition for being “unaware, clue-less and naive” about the bill being tabled in the Senate when it was already passed by the National Assembly and dates had been set for negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.
PPP’s Gilani was among at least eight opposition senators who had skipped last Friday’s Senate ses-sion, which allowed the PTI government to nar-rowly manage to get the crucial State Bank of Paki-stan (Amendment) Bill passed from the opposition-controlled house, a development that had raised many eyebrows.
Gilani, in his own Senate speech on Monday, said that he was being accused by “some turncoats” in what was an apparent reference to Qureshi and Chaudhry’s past as both are former leaders of the PPP.
Responding to Qureshi’s rebuke, Gilani termed the foreign minister’s tirade against him “contempt of the Senate”. “It is just a contempt of the Senate,” he repeated while speaking to media persons at his office in parliament after the Senate session.
