Establishment used media to show PDM’s Lahore rally a failure: Fazl

KARACHI: Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Thursday said that the establishment used media to show that the PDM rally in Lahore was a failure.

He said the presidential ordinance cannot change the procedure of Senate elections and judges are not ready to listen to the fictitious cases of the National Accountability Bureau against him.

“Perturbed by the PDM’s successful rallies, the government wants to conduct the Senate polls hurriedly but the opposition parties’ alliance will not allow the government to carry out unconstitutional acts,” said Rehman, while talking to the media at Jamia Arabia Ahsanul-Uloom in Gulshan-e-Iqbal after offering condolence on the demise of known religious scholar Maulana Zarwali Khan who passed away on December 7.

“Who has given the government the authority to bypass the constitution,” he asked. “It seems that the cabinet does not have the understanding of constitutional matters.”

He said that the PTI government could not be considered a constitutional or democratic regime. He said the PDM remains united and wants real democracy and autonomy of the institutions.

He alleged that the PTI’s government came to power through rigging, and said this would only strengthen international monetary institutions. “Brittle economy and soaring prices have drastically affected ordinary people who are in fact demanding to get rid of the current government,” he said.

Rehman also said that the cases registered against him by the NAB are so fake that judges are not ready to listen to them.

Commenting on the Sindh governments’ Thursday orders to shut down the madrassas in the province to limit the coronavirus spread, Rehman said that Wafaqul Madaris Al-Arabia is a representative body of the madrassas which will give its version on the government’s orders.

He also said that his brother Zia Ur Rehman was removed from DC District Central by saying that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government needs a competent officer. “But still he is not given a post,” he said.

He said that Pakistan should recognize Palestine, instead of Israel. “Pakistan’s foreign policy had failed and it was facing isolation,” he said. Meanwhile, Rehman arrived in Karachi on Thursday where the party’s leaders, including central secretary general Allama Ghafoor Haidri, and Maulana Rashid Soomro, received him at Karachi airport.

JUI-F’s sources told The News that following the decision of the federal government about holding Senate elections in February instead of March, JUI-F supremo arrived in Karachi where he is expected to meet Pakistan People’s Party’s central leaders to devise a joint strategy of the opposition parties regarding the Senate’s polls and the PDM’s deadline to the government.