By Abdullah Zahid
ISLAMABAD: Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Tuesday that lawmakers belonging to different opposition parties will submit their resignations to party heads by December 31.
Former premier Nawaz Sharif suggested at the PDM meeting that opposition lawmakers submit their resignations to Fazl, PDM sources told The Pakistan Daily. All parties agreed with Nawaz.
“All Opposition lawmakers, from the national and provincial assemblies throughout the country, should submit their resignations to their respective party leaderships by December 31,” said the JUI-F leader and the PDM chief, flanked by PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz.
Briefing media about the decisions taken in today’s PDM meeting held at the PML-N secretariat in Islamabad, The JUI-F chief said PDM – a multi-party alliance will hold a power show in Lahore on December 13 and warned of a possible clash if government tried to create a hurdle in way of the PDM leaders to hold a rally in Lahore.
Fazl said that the PDM’s upcoming Lahore jalsa will be a “historic one, and will prove to be the last nail [in the coffin] for the government.
The PDM president said that in a steering committee meeting tomorrow, a schedule for nationwide rallies and protests will be finalised, as well as the decision as to when the long march to Islamabad shall begin.
The JUI-F chief stated categorically that once handed in, the resignations will not be withdrawn, not like the PTI lawmakers who had resigned during the 2014 sit-in but then returned to the parliament a few months later.
Responding to reports about Prime Minister Imran Khan calling for a national dialogue, Rehman said that the Opposition has “rejected this offer” and that Prime Minister Imran Khan “is not worthy enough to hold talks with”.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, however, remains unmoved from the oppositions’ threat to resign from the assemblies.
The government would hold new elections if the opposition lawmakers resigned, he told senior journalists a few weeks ago.
