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New province calls to open Pandora's box: PM

 
                           
LAHORE - Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has maintained that PPP being a symbol of the Federation is totally against any fragmentation of provinces.
He said President Asif Ali Zardari and he himself were in total agreement on this issue, asserting that raising this particular issue at this point in time when country was facing more pressing issues was both ill-timed and inappropriate. 
He asked all those, spearheading the move for a separate province to first take up the issue at meetings of their respective parties, which he believed, was the right forum to deliberate upon such matters. 
Gilani expressed these views while talking exclusively to The Nation on Tuesday. 
A new debate has started in the country after some parliamentarians demanded a separate province status for Southern Punjab. The demand echoed both in the National and Punjab assemblies with politicians from Southern Punjab strongly defending the plea for a separate province. 
Reacting to this demand, Gilani said: “The country has been passing through the most critical phase of its history, confronting more pressing issues like ongoing war on terror, deteriorating law and order situation, obtaining in parts of the country as a result of this war, economic meltdown, besides the all-important constitutional issues such as NFC Award and activation of Council of Common Interests. 
According to him, these issues need government’s top priority. “Hence the timing for raising the spectre of a Saraiki province is both badly timed and unfortunate,” he asserted .
Gilani expressed the apprehension that such calls would open a Pandora’s box, which the country could ill afford at this juncture. He maintained that any such measure would in any case require a constitutional nod, requiring a complete unanimity among the political parties in the first place.
On political front, Gilani said the top priority at the moment for the government was to make changes in the Constitution according to the Charter of Democracy, especially the undoing of the 17th Amendment and 58-2(b), and both the PPP and PML-N were in complete agreement as far as these changes were concerned.
He most vehemently debunked the allegation that President Zardari had been fomenting the issue of Saraiki province. 
He said that at a recent party meeting both President Zardari and he strongly opposed the idea of a separate province and described the move an attempt to destabilise the Federation.