Daily Times

Balochistan National Party (BNP) leader Sardar Akhter Mengal on Wednesday maintained that the party had no intention of toppling the federal government as long as their demands were accepted, reported a private channel.

While addressing media in Karachi, the BNP leader reiterated that the party would be happy to cooperate with the government if their demands were addressed as promised.

Referring to Tuesday’s meeting between opposition parties in Islamabad, Mengal said the alliance between Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif will stabilise the country’s political climate.

He added that the party had discussed a six-point agenda with the federal cabinet regarding the presidential election and a nine-point agenda regarding provincial elections. However, he added, BNP still had reservations on the matter.

Talking of his alliance with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Mengal in October had said that the BNP would distance its politics from PTI if they were unsuccessful in fulfilling their demands stressing that his party offered external support to PTI and was not its coalition partner. The party leader expressed his dissatisfaction over the working relationship with the government by saying that he visited Islamabad thrice for meeting with the premier but to no avail.

“Who is responsible for that,” he said while speaking to the media before the party meeting.

Mengal said that his party members are independent members of the house and he has told the government since day one that he will extend his cooperation to the government projects depending on its merit.

Published in Daily Times, January 17^th 2019.