Ghani advises Centre to invoke Article 149 in Lahore

If the federal government is that much interested in invoking the Article 149, it better do so in Lahore or somewhere else.

Sindh Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani said this on Sunday as he spoke with The News. He said the Article 149 of the Constitution was being misinterpreted as it only empowered the federal government to issue directives to the provinces in case there was some law and order issues in the province. He added that the article did not empower the Centre to take back control of any area from the provincial governments.

Ghani accused Federal Law Minister Farogh Naseem of deliberately misinterpreting the article for political gains. He reiterated that the said article could only be invoked in case of a law and order issue.

The information minister said the 18th constitutional amendment had given autonomy to the provinces and the federal government now could not intervene in the provincial affairs. He alleged that the federal government had hatched up a conspiracy to divide Sindh but it would never be able to materialise it.

He said the people of Sindh would never accept any attempt to separate Karachi from the rest of the province and the political leaders who were thinking about it should keep in mind the sentiments of people in the province.

Ghani also criticised the federal government for its economic performance. He said the current economic situation of Pakistan was far from satisfactory and even the president had admitted that the country was facing an economic crisis.

He said the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan had become a B team of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its dream of separating Karachi from Sindh showed that its leaders were living in a fool’s paradise.

The information minister also criticised Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar, saying that he had not performed well. Ghani alleged that the mayor had been unable to stop corruption in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.

He asked what the District Municipal Corporations were doing when they had not been able to lift garbage from their limits. Calling on Prime Minister Imran Khan to resign, he said after causing economic crisis of the country, the federal government was now acting upon a conspiracy to cause constitutional turmoil in the country.