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Sunday, September 02, 2012
PPP to do utmost to bring Accountability Bill in NA: Gilani* Former PM says PPP would do everything possible to protect fundamental rights of minorities
LAHORE: Former prime minister and Pakistan People’s Party Senior Vice Chairman Yousaf Raza Gilani on Saturday said that the PPP would do its utmost to introduce the Accountability Bill in the forthcoming session of the National Assembly.
He expressed hope that other political parties in the House would also demonstrate keen interest to make it a law, which was important for ensuring transparency and accountability in society as a whole.
While talking to APP, he said PPP was committed to ensuring transparency and accountability as per its manifesto and Charter of Democracy (CoD), and therefore had decided to spearhead the move to table the Bill in the National Assembly.
Answering a question, the former prime minister said that PPP considered the minorities of Pakistan as its constituency and therefore had created the Ministry of Interfaith Harmony, headed by Paul Bhatti as the adviser to the prime minister and Akram Gill as the minister of state, both of whom belonged to the minority community.
Gilani said that PPP and its coalition partners were contemplating the enactment of 21st Amendment in the constitution, which would increase seats for the minorities in the National Assembly, based on the principle of representation on the basis of population.
PPP would do everything possible for the protection of the fundamental rights of minorities as equal citizens of the country and the question of discrimination in this regard was not in the genesis of the ideology of the party, he said.
The former prime minister also said that PPP and its leadership, including himself, had been the victims of NAB, as they had been subject to “witch hunting” and had suffered not only in Musharraf’s time but also during the rule of the party government, as cases against them were still being referred to NAB.
Gilani said that he was kept in solitary confinement by NAB for around three months as no bail was admissible under the NAB Ordinance and was put in jail for five years, which was in fact ten years as per the jail manual.
He also said that PML-N was backtracking from its commitment on the creation of new provinces in Punjab by saying that it was conspiracy to divide the province.
It was the Punjab Assembly that unanimously passed the resolution to the effect, which resultantly set the process in motion for the creation of new provinces in Punjab as per constitutional procedures specified in the constitution, he added.
The former prime minister questioned how the same process could be initiated in other provinces in the absence of the resolutions passed by the respective provincial assemblies.
He reminded the PML-N of the manifestoes of all political parties, which included the provisions about the creation of new provinces in southern Punjab as an instrument to address the grievances of the hundreds of millions of people of the region. appCourtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk