NWFP PPP leaders boycott PM’s function
PESHAWAR: The provincial leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) boycotted the function held at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat by walking out of the venue the moment Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani arrived there.
PPP leaders, including provincial deputy general secretary Zulfiqar Afghani, information secretary for NWFP Yawar Naseer and a dozen workers, left the venue to lodge their protest for what they said the decision not to invite the party’s provincial president and Health Minister Syed Zahir Ali Shah to the function and keeping out the PPP office-bearers from the event.
Though the party’s senior minister Rahimdad Khan, Humayun Khan, Mehmood Zeb and others attended the programme but it failed to calm down the angry PPP activists. Earlier, Zulfiqar Afghani, while talking to the media, said the PPP was not consulted on the appointment of administrators after the dissolution of the local government bodies. He said a meeting of the party’s provincial office-bearers and executive council would be convened soon to discuss the issue and raise it with the party’s co-chairperson and top leaders.
Despite being a coalition partner and major political party, the PPP was not taken into confidence before the dissolution of the local governments and appointment of administrators, he complained.
“We reject the decision and will resist it at all costs. The PPP was also ignored in the selection of the Zakat committee chairmen and only Awami National Party activists were appointed against these posts. Being a major coalition partner, the PPP should have been consulted as was done in Sindh,” he argued.
However, Senior Minister Bashir Bilour told newsmen the Local Government Bill 2009 was approved by the provincial cabinet and passed by the provincial assembly unanimously. The cabinet as well as the assembly has PPP members and they had supported the bill, he added.
He said the PPP workers’ boycott of the prime minister’s function and rejection of the appointment of administrators was their internal matter and the ANP or the NWFP government had nothing to do with it.
Source: The News
Date:2/23/2010
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