new journey
ISLAMABAD
Leader of the House in Senate and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Thursday urged the opposition to join hands and burry the past to steer the country out of challenges.
Replying to various points raised by leader of the Opposition in Senate Syed Shibli Faraz, the FM said that let be realistic, and shun blame game for working together to bringing this country out of the challenges.
Election process had been completed and now, we should utilize our energies to address the issues being faced the people and the country like energy, inflation, and debt, he said.
He further stated that the country was at verge of default in 2013 when Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz came into power. However, he said with collective efforts of all stakeholders, Pakistan has not only completed International Monetary Fund (IMF) programmes but also made the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) record at 4 percent besides maintaining food inflation at 2 percent.
Pakistan would have been among the top G 20 countries if there was no political instability in the country, he said.
The minister while welcoming the opposition leader suggestion to maintain sanctity of this house, urged the opposition members to come forward and play due role to achieve the objectives in this regard.
Regarding allocation of funds in the budget for fiscal year 2023-24, he said that government had provided funds for holding elections. An amount of over Rs 44 billion had been released by the last government for completion of election process, he said.
He said, it was the responsibility of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold elections in a transparent manner and after this process, the caretaker government was bound to discharge the duties to next elected government.
Regarding Senate elections in Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa, he said, the central government has a role in the Senate elections. The provincial government should complete the process in light of the court orders and the ECP directives,
he added.
Regarding PTI election symbol, he said, Section 215 was included in the Election (Amendment) Act 2017 on the recommendation of PTI lawmakers. Every political party has representation in the committee set up for Election (Amendment) Act 2017, he added.
He said that under the insertion of Section 215, election symbol would not be allotted to the party which did not hold intra party elections. He, however said that It was internal matter of PTI and the ECP only acted upon on Section 215.
Ishaq Dar said, he was against the political victimization and had sympathies with the opposition but in the past our leadership and their family members were implicated in false cases and even Senator Irfan Saddiqui was handcuffed on false rental case. He said, he always made efforts for political reconciliation and played key role during PTI’s 126 days long sit-in that held in 2014.
However, he said that PTI committed blunders on May 9, by attacking GHQ, Corp Commander House and other military installations.
Earlier, leader of the opposition Syed Shibli Faraz while speaking in the Senate said that PTI Founder and other workers were behind the bars for the last nine months. His party was deprived of election symbol before the general elections and PTI was not allowed to contest election as a party, he said.
He said that this house was incomplete without the election of senators from KPK. He urged the chairman to issue production order for senator Ijaz Chaudhry.
