Siraj opposes demandfor early elections

LAHORE :Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has said the bill passed by Senate allowing a disqualified person to become party head is against the Constitution and an attempt to bulldoze Supreme Court judgment in Panama Leaks case. 

Talking to the media after a meeting of JI central executive at Mansoora on Monday, he demanded the government withdraw the ‘controversial’ bill which negated the electoral laws. He said a person not fulfilling conditions of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution could not be head of a political party.

To a question, JI ameer said early elections could be held with the consensus of all political parties. However, he said, instead of allowing the ruling part y to become a political martyr by calling early elections, it would be better to let the assemblies complete their term so that governments’ performance was before the electorate for judgment. He said only a few months were left for the completion of the term of the government. Sirajul Haq said government itself had made the electoral reforms suggested by the Parliamentary Committee controversial by permitting a disqualified person to lead the party as this was violation of the fundamentals of the Constitution and this would bring the entire electoral system in dispute and bring bad a name to the country. He said electoral reforms suggested by the JI had not been considered at all. JI ameer said in a democratic set up, judgments of courts were fully respected. However, he said the ruling party had been distributing sweets on judgments which it thought were in its favour but began protest when the court decision was against its wishes. He said that this attitude was not democratic.

Sirajul Haq condemned India’s persistent hostilities at LoC and the border in which innocent citizens were martyred. He regretted that Pakistan government was not giving a proper reply to India’s excesses and added this cowardly policy must be changed. He said India was continuing genocide of youth in Kashmir while the Pakistan government was keen for friendship with India and for trade agreements with the enemy country. He said government would have to change its attitude.

Sirajul Haq offered condolences to the family of Army officer, Lt Arsalan martyred at the Afghan border. He said entire nation stood with the bereaved family that had offered its son for national defense. He urged Muslim world to work out a common line of action for the restoration of a separate Muslim state in Burma. He said a meeting of OIC should be convened and the Muslim states should expel the Burmese envoys and recall their own envoys in Burma.

Later, addressing the Hijab Conference organised by JI women wing at a local hotel in connection with World Hijab Day to support Muslim women’s right to cover themselves, Senator Sirajul Haq said the west, after having failed in all its conspiracies against Islam, had now attacked the sacred family relations in order to create distances between husband and wife, daughter and her father and the mother and her dear son.

Islamic Ideological Council member, Begum Samiha Raheel Qazi, Dr Durdana Siddiqui also addressed the conference at which Begum Qazi Husain Ahmed, Aisha Munawar and Begum Sirajul Haq, were also present.

Sirajul Haq said the west had been exploiting the women folk, deprived her of their respectable status and reduced the women to a market commodity. On the other hand, Islam had afforded the women folk sacred relationship as mothers, sisters and daughters. He said JI was striving for the rights of the women folk, and wanted a society where the women were given due respect and their right of inheritance was protected.

He said he had already demanded of the Election Commission that only those male candidates should be allowed to contest elections who provided a certificate of having given their womenfolk their inherited property.

Sirajul Haq said it was the responsibility of the state to provide facilities of education and health to the girls and women and added no government so far had done this. He said women folk comprised half of the world population and added that the development of the country was not possible by denying the women their lawful rights.