Daily Times

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Tuesday failed to seek the support of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for the launch of an anti-government movement.

Former Sindh governor Muhammad Zubair, speaking to a private television, said that the top priority of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was to get rid of the legal cases, and not to launch a campaign against the government.

The JUI-F chief’s latest attempt to launch an anti-government movement fell flat after he called on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif at the latter’s residence in Lahore to inquire after his health.

Rehman, while talking to journalists later, said: “The agenda of the meeting was limited to inquiring about his [Nawaz Sharif’s] health, but we also discussed our shared concerns on towering inflation, which is affecting the common man, and the troubled economy.

JUI-F chief terms NAB ‘institution of revenge’

He said he had been in touch with other political leaders, including Asif Ali Zardari. He added that he will also call on Zardari in the next few days as believes that “internal connections [among opposition parties] should remain intact”.

Moreover, he said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is an institution of revenge. “You should not expect accountability or justice from NAB. I think we need to take some strict decisions when it comes to NAB,” Fazl told reporters following the meeting, which lasted for two hours and focused on problems being faced by Pakistan. While criticizing the government, Rehman described the current regime as an “installed” one. He added that the ruling regime has no knowledge of the ideology of Pakistan, the ground realities of the country and the economy.

He repeated that the JUI-F has completed 10 ‘million march’ against the government and that they are ready for a decisive one.

Earlier on Sunday, Rehman had said that his party was fully active and ready to bring down the government. “We have already mobilised our workers by holding a ‘million march’ in the country and are planning a decisive one, towards Islamabad, after which the PTI government will not survive,” he had said while speaking to the media at the residence of a senior party colleague in Kandhkot-Kashmore.

He had echoed the concern of the PPP about the 18th Constitutional Amendment and criticised what he called the government’s moves to abrogate the Amendment. He had warned that such an act would be tantamount to “treason”.

“My party has been running a mass contact campaign to get people rid themselves of the government,” he had added, pointing out that the country was today facing an economic crisis due to an all time high volume of foreign loans, which were constantly increasing.