ISLAMABAD: Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif addressed a huge public meeting in Sialkot on Saturday. Earlier, on Friday he sent names of six nominees to Prime Minister Imran Khan for filling vacant posts of members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), but expressed displeasure that the government had not followed the Supreme Court’s ruling which required the PM’s “serious and meaningful” consultation with him on the matter.
The names put forward by the opposition leader are retired Justice Tariq Iftikhar Ahmed, Muhammad Javed Anwar, retired Justice Mushtaq Ahmed, Khalid Masood Chaudhry, Irfan Qadir and Irfan Ali.
In his letter, Mr Sharif said: “Judgement of the Supreme Court requires that the consultation has to be effective, meaningful, purposive, consensus-oriented, leaving no room for complaint of arbitrariness or unfair play, serious, sincere, and genuine efforts to evolve consensus, by all means.”
According to Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, the prime minister had sent a letter on Aug 26 to the opposition leader, proposing three names each for ECP members from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
For the vacant seat of ECP member from Punjab, Mr Khan had proposed the names of Ahsan Mahboob, Raja Amer Khan, and Dr Syed Pervaiz Abbas. And for the post of member from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he suggested the names of retired Justice Ikramullah Khan, Faridullah Khan, and Muzammil Khan.
As the names proposed by the prime minister on the one hand and those by the opposition leader on the other are all different, it remains to be seen whether they will be able to forge a consensus on the persons to be appointed to the vacant posts, as required under the Constitution.
Address at Sialkot
Addressing the Workers Convention in Sialkot on Saturday, Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has said that the defeat of PTI in the cantonment elections is a political death. He said that there was no doubt that the interference in the cantonment elections was not Kanshan. The majority of the people in Punjab voted for PML-N.
Shahbaz Sharif said that there was no sign of interference in the cantonment board elections for a long time. Demanding fair and transparent elections in the country, Shahbaz Sharif said that if transparent elections were not held then we would take legal path which is our right.
He said that there was a demand from all the constitutional institutions that in any case the country needs transparent elections, the country needs rule of law, civil supremacy.
Shahbaz Sharif said that the hearts of the people have been filled in three years, inflation has broken the backs of the people, people are remembering Nawaz Sharif’s government today.
The PML-N president said that sugar has reached Rs 108 and Rs 110 per kg today. In our time, sugar did not go above Rs 52. In three years, billions of rupees of sugar were imported.
Shahbaz Sharif said that they put their name plates on the plans made by PML-N, today the economy of the country is being ruined by their hands, 2018 people may have voted for PTI because maybe change will come.
He said that you take the name of the state of Madinah and act against it one hundred percent. People remember the PML-N government because medicines and tests were free in the hospitals. Laptops were given as usual.
Shahbaz Sharif said that he used to say at that time that Shahbaz Sharif was paying bribe. Today, when the rupee has reached close to 170 against the dollar, who is corrupt?
He said that there was talk of five million houses, one crore jobs, today five million people have become unemployed, today life has become difficult for a family of six people, it has become difficult to live.