Punjab Governor criticized by PPP for letting Army Chief interfere in political matters

LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has criticised Punjab Governor Omar Sarfaraz Cheema for inviting the army chief to interfere in the political matters and described it as “playing with the Constitution” during his last few days in office.

“The governor has begun playing with the Constitution by taking an unconstitutional step of writing to the army chief to meddle in the Punjab politics where Hamza Shehbaz has taken oath as the chief minister after his win in the election held on the direction of the higher judiciary,” PPP parliamentary leader in Punjab Assembly Syed Hassan Murtaza.

He said demanding from the Establishment to provide a few army men to arrest the chief minister and imprison him was an open violation of the Constitution done by the governor during his last days in office. He said Governor Cheema would be known in the history as the one who repeatedly violated the Constitution, law and norms of democracy by refusing to administer oath to the chief minister despite court orders, transgressing his powers by seeking a report from the Punjab Assembly secretary on the elections to the slot of the CM, and inviting the Establishment to interfere in political matters.

He regretted that Cheema preferred to serve his party, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, instead of serving the Constitution which was in fact his prime responsibility. He said the PTI would soon be buried in the dustbin of history.

Former MPA Faiza Malik said in a statement that since the ouster of the PTI from power corridors through a no-confidence motion, the former ruling party was doing its best to hatch one conspiracy or another against the government. She said the PTI’s social media network was abusing the state institutions for not coming to rescue Imran Khan as the prime minister, while its appointed governor Cheema was inviting a state institution to interfere in Punjab affairs.

She said on one hand the PTI was blaming a foreign conspiracy for its removal from government and, on the other hand, it was moving the UNO on flimsy grounds of victimisation and thus exposing its double standards.

Punjab PPP Information Secretary Shehzad Saeed Cheema has reacted to Imran Khan’s statement by saying four years of PTI rule was the era of slavery for the freedoms. He asked the former PM to tell the voters of Mianwali how much development work he had got done in the constituency while in power.

He said “Farah Khan’s spokesman” had nothing to say except to lie and slander. He said the purpose of the ‘puppet’ Khan’s call for a long march on Islamabad was nothing but to create chaos in the country.