Daily Times

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz said on Monday that the government is ready for dialogue with ‘serious-minded’ leadership of the opposition and the forum would be the Parliament as it represents the people’s will.

Addressing a press conference along with Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain and Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda, he said that national dialogue is part of politics but both Maryam Nawaz and Fazalur Rehman who are not part of the parliament will be excluded from the process. He said that the government has also given the agenda of the dialogue which would be reforms in the electoral system.

Criticizing the opposition, he said that they were seeking resignation of the government on the allegation of electoral rigging but has given no electoral reforms. He said that the opposition leadership believed that if they won, the elections were free and fair but if someone else won, elections were rigged. “It is unfortunate that those who are facilitators in killing of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and tortured Benazir Bhutto are sitting on stage with the Pakistan People’s Party leadership,” he added.

Shibli said that normally events to mark the death anniversaries are not used for delivering political speeches but they utilized the event for political point scoring. He said that it was strange that the enemies of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto were given space to share the stage with PPP leadership.

To a question about internal differences in Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, he said that those who termed Fazalur Rehman ‘selected’ are insiders and enjoy good reputation and status in the party. He said that Maulana Shirani and Hafiz Hussain Ahmed have stated that Fazl was ‘selected’ whereas they are the real leaders of the party.

Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said the government is ready to hold dialogue with the serious leadership of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and not with the political interns like Maryam Nawaz and Bilawal Bhutto. Prime Minister Imran Khan had already expressed his willingness to come to the negotiating table with the mature leaders of both Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), he said. “The government has already decided the Parliament as the forum and the electoral reforms as the agenda, for talks,” he said.

The minister stated that the dialogue was not possible with the political interns, who even did not know about the country’s history that how it was created, and had never read a single book. “Serious leadership of the PDM alliance should come forward and take the initiative,” he stressed.

Referring to the PDM meeting at Larkana on Sunday, Chaudhry Fawad said it was a total disgrace for both the PPP and the PML-N. Neither the PPP leaders felt ashamed in inviting the PML-N to attend their meeting nor the latter felt any humiliation in accepting the invitation. It was PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif (the right hand of Chief Martial Law Administrator General Zia-ul-Haq) and family, who had first distributed sweets on the imposition of martial law, and then on the hanging of PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, he recalled.