Daily Times

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Monday formed a committee to hold consultations with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and other opposition parties before committing to a final date for their anti-government protest, media reports said.

PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal told reporters after a meeting of the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) chaired by its president Shahbaz Sharif, that the party will cooperate with every movement that is aimed at bringing down the PTI government, including the JUI-F’s proposed long march scheduled for October. However, Iqbal said a majority of the participants of the meeting had agreed that the protest should be deferred until November because the PML-N needs to ‘fully mobilise’ its ranks for any anti-government movement. In this regard, the party has formed divisional committees to speed up mobilisation efforts.

“We must pave the way for next general elections as they are necessary now to steer the country out of crisis,” Ahsan Iqbal said.

Iqbal said the Central Executive Committee of the party has discussed political situation in the country. He said the meeting expressed solidarity with Kashmiris, adding that it also analysed Imran Khan’s address at the UNGA. He said first 50 days of curfew in Kashmir were wasted and no one including the foreign minister visited foreign countries. He said government was assured of support of 58 countries but it could not even grab 16 votes.

JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had last month announced that his party planned a ‘decisive’ long march aimed at ousting the present government in October. He had warned the government against making any effort to disrupt the planned march and expressed hope that people ‘from all walks of life and from all over the country’ will reach Islamabad to participate in what he called an ‘Azadi March’ to free the country of the present ‘incompetent and illegitimate government’.