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PPP rules out any new province

Islamabad

Top PPP leadership ruled out a possibility to divide a province to create a new one for the time being and decided to continue with the politics of consensus and reconciliation in line with the Charter of Democracy (CoD) in letter and spirit.

According to sources, in a PPP parliamentary party meeting chaired jointly by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani at the Presidency on Monday night clearly told the party leadership that the PPP would follow the politics of consensus and reconciliation and would not become a part of any move that might cause political division. 

“The PPP is a federal party and its mainstay politics is based on consensus and reconciliation and will not be part of any move that may create division among the people on linguistic or ethnic bases,” sources said while quoting President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani.

Sources said that the PPP leadership expressed concern over the slogans raised in favour of new provinces while the country was in war against terrorism.

Sources said that some participants of the meeting raised the issue regarding the proposal to create new provinces with a special reference to Saraiki province.

Sources said Zardari and Gilani gave the clear and loud message to those parliamentarians who raised the issue that the PPP represents the federation and would not become a part of any move at this time that might create division among the federating units as well as the people. “We do not want to open the Pandora’s box at a time when the country is in grip of terrorism as once the issue of division among the provinces will open it may divide the nation,” both the leaders said.

Sources said the president and the prime minister told the parliamentarians that the PPP-led government wanted to concentrate on law and order situation, war against terrorism and the economic situation of the country.

Sources said both the leadership also told the parliamentarians that the PPP’s first aim was to implement the Charter of Democracy in letter and spirit in accordance with the desire of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto.

Sources said when some of the members pointed out that the southern Punjab was being deprived of development in the recent budget of Punjab as only Rs5 billion out of total Rs137 development budget was earmarked for the area, the prime minister assured them that the PPP would formulate the uniform development policy for all the areas.

Sources said the president and the prime minister told the parliamentarians that the first aim of the parliamentary committee was to democratise the constitution by removing the anti-democratic clauses injected by successive dictators.