Sirajul Haq hopes that PDM & PTI would bring flexibility to their stance to develop consensus on the date of the general elections

LAHORE, April 17 (SABAH):Jamaat-e-Islami Emir Sirajul Haq has hoped that the PDM and the PTI would bring flexibility to their stance to develop consensus on the date of the general elections.

While talking to different TV channels on Monday in background of his efforts to evolve consensus on the national polls, he said the national leadership should adopt an honorable way and sit on the table for dialogue as the fight would neither end with the interference of judiciary or establishment and nor someone from abroad would come to extend assistance.

Gulf states and foreign powers were busy in settling down their own priorities, he said, adding the days were gone when Pakistan was their priority. It rested upon the politicians to either find solution to the persisting crisis or continue with posing the country as laughing stock for the entire world, he said.

“If we want to play cricket, we should all agree on the time, venue and ground.”
Haq said it was responsibility of the political parties to provide fair chances to the people to elect their representatives. The judiciary, the establishment and the election commission should stand neutral and apolitical, he emphasized.
He said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and PTI chairman Imran Khan agreed with him during his meeting with them that the situation in the country was ugly. Realizing the intensity of the situation, he said, both the parties had also formed dialogue committees. He said he would meet the leadership of the PPP, the JUI-F and other parliamentary parties after the Eid on the agenda to bring them on the table.

He clarified the JI had started its efforts by own, for the sake of people who were at the receiving end of the prevailing crises. The country, he said, was on the edge of bankruptcy and masses were burning in the fire of inflation and unemployment with some political parties, judiciary were at loggerheads. Things would not remain in the control of anyone if the situation prevailed, he cautioned.

He said every political party enjoyed the right to do politics according to its ideology and agenda but they at least come forward to achieve the main objective- the polls. The prevailing political fight, he said, was not as such the war between India and Pakistan that no one could withdraw from its position. And, he said, if Nelson Mandela could sit with opponents after 30 years of imprisonment and dialogue could be held between the Taliban and the US then why the political parties of the country could not sit together to resolve their problems.