Asad Qaiser says govt offered long-term interim setup

ISLAMABAD: Former National Assembly (NA) Speaker Asad Qaisar has said the government had offered them a long-term interim government set-up. Such extra-constitutional demand will not be accepted in any shape, he said. 

While talking to Hamid Mir, the host of the Geo News programme Capital Talk on Thursday, Asad Qaisar said the PTI is ready to hold talks if the government announces an election date. He said that acceptance of the resignations of PTI lawmakers has become a political issue and is not a constitutional one. He said that the resigned PTI lawmakers had not been getting salaries and other facilities since April.

Asad Qaisar said that they had a detailed meeting with NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Thursday and asked him to accept the resignations forthwith. He said they told the NA Speaker that Qasim Khan Suri had accepted the resignations and these were to be sent to the Election Commission. They requested the NA Speaker to honour the ruling of the former speaker. Asad Qaisar said that they had asked the NA speaker whether he had accepted the resignations of 11 lawmakers by calling them one by one. Asad Qaisar said the NA speaker told them that those 11 lawmakers tweeted him about their resignations.

The former NA speaker told him that they had also tweeted Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. He said the government did not want to accept the resignations of PTI MNAs.

Asad Qaisar said the government is afraid of holding elections. He said that the government had delayed the LG elections in Islamabad and now it intended to get the LG polls delayed in Sindh too. He said the PDM wanted power whether it (PDM) could run the country or not. He said the NA speaker had told him that some PTI members asked him not to accept their resignations.

Asad Qaisar said that ex-MNAs can use the Parliament Lodges until new MNAs are elected. He said that the Parliament Lodges of 11 resigned MNAs were vacated. It is beyond his understanding how the month of January would pass in the present economic condition.

He said that there was no room for a long-term interim government in the Constitution and such an extra-constitutional offer cannot be accepted at any cost. He said that they are ready for talks with the government if it gives an election date.