report in Pakistan Today, Dec 29, 2020
Replying to the claims the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) leaders made during the Larkana rally, Interior Minister Shiekh Rasheed Ahmed said that the opposition leaders are “a product of General Headquarters gate number four” and that “they polished Ziaul Haq’s boots”.
The above was said during a press conference in the federal capital, wherein the interior minister rebuked the opposition’s claims of the Pakistan Army interfering in local politics. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari during his speech had said that the PDM would put an end to the business of selection and selectors.
Similarly, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz had said: “When political parties started completing their terms, some forces to whom ‘divide and rule’ suited started getting restless. Then we saw [former ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja] Pasha set up a party by collecting political trash named the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and that party was then used in dharnas and conspiracies against your elected government.”
Rasheed pointed out that the PDM leaders did not take the name of General Ziaul Haq during their rally.
Regarding PDM’s proposed long march, Rasheed jibed that it needs to be a long march, and not a “lone march”. The interior minister further said that the opposition’s true battle was not with Prime Minister Imran Khan but with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), and that their only goal was to escape the corruption cases.
He said that the opposition had been silent for two years in the hope that they would get an NRO, but now they had “suddenly remembered everything”. “Yesterday they said [Member of the National Assembly] Murtaza Javed Abbasi will give his resignation. You will see [him say] ‘I did not send this.’” Rashid said in response to a question about the en masse resignations. He further said computerised and typed resignations were “illegal” and they should instead be handwritten.
Yesterday, Minister for Interior Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, while talking to a private news channel, had said that the incumbent government will complete its five years constitutional tenure due to timely decisions and positive political approach of PM Imran. He had added that the opposition parties are divided on the issue of resignations, but they are pretending as united in order to pressurise the government.
Rasheed had said that the opposition wants to destabilise the country for protecting its personal interests, but the state would never allow them to do so at any cost. He had also expressed his optimism that the opposition would take part in the Senate elections and would not tender resignations.
The minister had said that the opposition alliance is using the issue of the resignation as a political stunt. Replying to a question, he said that the politics of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is based on a personal vendetta.
