Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed said on Thursday that opposition parties would not resign from assemblies and instead participate in the Senate election in March.
“If the PPP participates in the Senate election, then there is no reason for the PML-N to stay behind,” Rasheed told SAMAA TV’s Nadeem Malik on his show. “Certainly, they will go for a long march after March.”
Opposition parties, under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement, have announced that they would resign from the national and provincial assemblies by January 31.
The PPP, however, appears to be backtracking from the PDM’s decision to resign from assemblies and boycotting the Senate election.
JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman is pushing the opposition to create political chaos in the country, according to Rasheed.
“The root cause of the evil is Maulana Fazlur Rehman who wants to create chaos,” he said. “I am talking about political chaos, not the religious one.”
‘Nawaz won’t return to Pakistan’
The interior minister said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had instructed him not to extend validity of Nawaz Sharif’s passport.
“Yesterday, Khan sahib gave me the instruction not to give extension,” the minister said. He, however, didn’t believe Nawaz intended to return to Pakistan.
“Nawaz Sharif will not even try to come to Pakistan under such circumstances,” Rasheed said.
The current PML-N narrative has badly damaged the party, he said, adding that Nawaz’s daughter Maryam has apparently realized it and her last few speeches were very “technical” ones.
“She is playing on a different pitch now,” the minister added.