PDM’s parties fail to decide on date of Lahore public meeting

ISLAMABAD: The component parties of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) including PMLN are yet to decide the date for highly important public meeting that would be held in Lahore, sources told The News here Tuesday.

Sources said JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has also personally told former premier Nawaz Sharif in his last telephonic contact to announce date for the public meeting in Lahore. The PMLN sources said Maulana Fazlur Rehman also wants to turn public meeting into a long march that should move towards Islamabad to register protest against the incumbent government, adding “the PMLN leadership has given a serious thought to this proposal but no decision has been taken in this connection”.

They said the component parties of the PDM including JUIF are in favour of holding public meeting in Lahore in November and they have already proposed it to the PMLN leadership. Sources claimed that the PMLN considers the public meeting in Lahore as one of the main factors that would decide the fate of the protest movement against the Imran-led government.

A senior PMLN member confided to this correspondent that there is a lot of discussion going on about the Lahore’s public meeting and, hopefully, the consensus based decision would be taken by the PDM in the next few days.

When contacted, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told The News that “we are still holding discussion about date for the public meeting in Lahore. The PMLN will soon inform component parties of the PDM about it after which a joint decision will be taken in this respect”.