Gen Qadir gives reason for quitting PML-N: It’s not Zehri or Ayaz, it’s Nawaz

ISLAMABAD: Lt Gen (Retd.) Abdul Qadir Baloch said that he decided to quit the PML-N for the sole reason that Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s Quetta public meeting crossed red lines by asking the army’s rank and file not to obey what Nawaz termed the ‘illegal’ and ‘unconstitutional’ orders of the army chief and DG ISI.

Talking to The News on Monday, the PML-N’s provincial president said that he would formally announce his resignation from the party at a press conference that he intends to address on November 7. The retired general, who was a member of Nawaz Sharif’s cabinet in the last PML-N government, said that what Nawaz had conveyed to army officers in his Quetta speech was extremely dangerous for the institution of the Pakistan Army. He said it could lead to a rebellion within the rank and file.

Baloch explained that it is not for lower rank officers to interpret their top command’s orders and to decide on their own which order they have to obey and which order they need to reject and whether any order in their view is legal or illegal. If army officers start evaluating the orders of their command along these lines, the institution will collapse and there would be a mutiny every day.

Baloch said that in the same speech, Nawaz Sharif had asked people to come out on the streets and no one would proceed against them.

Regarding reports that he is quitting the party after PML-N’s controversial decision not to invite former Balochistan chief minister Sanaullah Zehri to the recently held PDM rally in Quetta, he said that he had reservations on that matter too but that was not the reason for his leaving the party.

He added that a day before the Quetta public meeting, it was conveyed to him by his party that Sanaullah Zehri was not welcome in the PDM’s rally because Akhtar Mengal had reservations about Zehri.

The retired general, who has also been Governor Balochistan during Gen Musharraf’s tenure, said that he talked to several PML-N leaders, including Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Ahsan Iqbal, Mussadiq Malik, Muhammad Zubair and Marriyum Aurangzeb, to plead Zehri’s case but the former CM was not allowed to join the PDM rally. Maryam Nawaz, he said, was also in the loop on this issue. The Zehri issue, he insisted, was not the main reason for his departure from the PML-N. He said that former Speaker NA Ayaz Sadiq’s controversial statement was also not the reason for his decision to quit the party. Baloch also denied that there was any pressure on him from the military establishment to part ways with the Nawaz-led Muslim League.