ISLAMABAD (Voice of Russia): JUI chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has rejected the government’s narrative on governor’s rule and emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as baseless, saying the whole matter is actually about gaining control of the province’s minerals.
Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the party’s central Majlis-e-Shura, he said his party believes in political dialogue, and if there are reservations about government policies they should be answered in a political manner rather than through accusations. He demanded that an in-camera session of parliament be called on the current situation to take members into confidence.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman rejected governor’s rule and asked what results the many operations of the past had produced. He said the PML-N government had merged FATA into the province, and today the same party has handed the former FATA over to the centre; in his view, all of this is an attempt to control the minerals. He said the emergency has also been imposed in those same districts, and in meetings with FATA elders it was agreed that the merger process has proved a failure. Referring to Colin Powell’s statement, he said the proposal to send the army into FATA was America’s; he has no objection to investment, but the question is why only America is taking an interest.
He made clear that no JUI member will be part of the interim council being formed in KP, and that any change of government should happen under the constitution rather than through force. According to him, the President did not fulfil the constitutional requirements by signing without satisfaction. He recalled that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari had also imposed governor’s rule; were those accepted at the time?
Maulana Fazlur Rehman said force is currently being used on the instructions of powerful forces, and no single power can represent the interests of the whole nation. According to him, Asia is once again becoming a global economic hub, the Islamic world should have an effective bloc, and the Islamic Conference is an ineffective bloc. He described the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia as an attempt to stop Muslim unity.
He said his party has also lifted more than 150 bodies due to terrorism, but it has always rejected the politics of the gun. According to him, the system given by Pervez Musharraf failed, the police were separated from the administration, and now, 25 years later, there is talk of restoring the same system.
Maulana announced that a FATA jirga will be called, a students’ convention will be held in Islamabad, and a public rally will be held in Sargodha on 26 November. The Majlis-e-Shura demanded new elections, saying the JUI does not accept the results of the 2018 and 2024 elections. He said his relationship of respect with Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari existed before and exists today, and he is not asking anyone for a certificate of patriotism.
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