Political parties being weakened in AJK: PMLN

MIRPUR: Senior minister of AJK and sitting secretary general of PMLN AJK Chapter, Chaudhry Tariq Farooq, while lambasting the alleged poor policies and performance of the incumbent AJK Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq-led coalition state government, alleged that the political parties in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) were weakened under a pre-planned nefarious framework through induction of, what he asserted, an incapable person as the prime minister of AJK.

“The political parties within AJK are being weakened furthermore because of the lack of due homework by the political parties for the progress and prosperity and betterment of the masses in the state”, he observed while talking to media at the local hotel here late Monday.

The largely-attended media talk was hosted by senior journalist of AJK Syed Abid Hussain Shah, former president of Kashmir Press Club Mirpur, to inquire about the role of the political parties in AJK including all those sitting on treasury and opposition benches in sitting AJK Legislative Assembly, for the uplift and betterment of the people across the liberated territory without discrimination.

Ch Tariq Farooq, whose’ PMLN, AJK Chapter, is also serving as coalition partner of the AJK PM Anwarul Haq–led sitting coalition government of AJK, continued that the politics of moral values, democratic norms and principles has totally vanished in AJK turning into the political enmities.

He said that in view of the internationally-acknowledged disputed status of the entire Jammu Kashmir State, AJK was not constitutional part of the federation of Pakistan.

“AJK is a separate entity and authority”, he observed, adding that the healthy role performed by the AJK political leadership of past for ensuring and maintaining the respectable due legitimate status of the AJK State and the State government has collapsed by now, through induction of a person as the prime minister of AJK, who, what Tariq asserted, has no strength and courage to bear external pressure.

To a question, the PMLN AJK Secretary General said that a big majority of his party was in favour of quitting the sitting AJK PM Anwarul Haq Ch-led coalition government because of its controversial status since it had primarily came into power under the fold of the PTI and the sitting AJK PM Anwarul Haq had also been elected being the nominee of the PTI in AJK Legislative Assembly elections.

Tariq Farooq added that any final decision about parting ways, by the PMLN from the incumbent AJK coalition regime, was awaited from the party’s supreme head Mian Nawaz Sharif.