Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) has threatened to launch a severe protest movement if the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)-led Punjab government tries to bulldoze the Punjab Local Government Ordinance in the Punjab Assembly.
There were reports that the PTI was planning to bulldoze the local government bill in the house by rejecting all the amendments and suggestions of the opposition.
“We are warning the government not to bypass the legal and constitutional procedure in the case of local government bill. We’ll protest both inside and outside the house and PTI will remember this protest movement for years to come,” said PML-N Punjab General Secretary and Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) Sardar Awais Laghari, while addressing a press conference at the party secretariat in Model Town. He was flanked by PML-N Deputy Secretary General Atta Ullah Tarar, MPA Samiullah Khan, MPA Azma Bukhari and other members of the standing committee of Punjab Assembly on local government.
“PML-N conducted local body elections in 2016 in which more than 58,000 people were elected but the PTI abolished the system after coming into power because PML-N representatives were sitting in the local government offices,” said Laghari, while adding that the absence of local governments was a huge loss for the whole of Punjab.
He was of the view that the Supreme Court restored these institutions after a legal fight of 30 months but still the elected representatives couldn’t get their offices to sit and perform their duties. He further added that the PML-N had boycotted the standing committees earlier in protest against not naming Hamza Shehbaz as the Public Accounts Committee Chairman despite the fact that he held the office of opposition leader.
We joined the standing committee on local government once again as it is our belief that democracy cannot be run without the local governments, said Laghari. We attended six meetings of this standing committee that was studying the local government draft but then the meeting was cancelled suddenly, he added.
The PTI government is trying to bulldoze the parliament but we’ll resist it, he said. The PML-N leaders said that they had severe reservations over the draft of local government that PTI had prepared including the usage of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the nature of devolution of power.
“We have prepared more than hundred amendments over the draft but the government wants to silence us through numerical strength,” they said.
According to PML-N leaders, the government has given huge powers to the chief minister and the bureaucracy in the bill that was against the basic spirit of local governments. The municipal committees and corporations have been abolished while the bureaucracy would enjoy huge powers in the new draft.
Tarar said that Punjab CM Usman Buzdar had no role in it as it was happening on the behest of PM Imran Khan who was controlling Punjab through Islamabad. He was of the view that the government was planning to rig the elections through EVMs but they would not let it do so.
“We’ll approach the government allies and some disgruntled PTI leaders who are also annoyed with the draft of local government. We’ll try our best to block this legislation in Punjab Assembly,” he said.
It would be pertinent to mention here that the Punjab government had already announced to hold the local government elections in the province in May this year but it hasn’t completed the legislative process so far.
A severe deadlock persists between the government and opposition over the draft of local government and therefore it was being planned to be bulldozed in the Punjab Assembly by rejecting the amendments of the opposition.
