LAHORE - Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Pervaiz Rashid has said that his party has never been involved in any act contrary to the Constitution.
Regarding the controversy on the issue of deal with Pervez Musharraf, he said the PPP leadership was itself divided on the issue. He said the statements of the PPP leadership including Farhatullah Babar, Yusuf Raza Gilani and Qamar Zaman Kaira, on the issue of exit deal with the former dictator were conflicting while Pervez Musharraf had himself denied any kind of deal.
Talking to media persons at a certificate distribution ceremony here at National College of Arts (NCA) on Sunday, the minister said the PML-N had very clear stance towards the dictators and it had never been a part of any deal against the Constitution and would not do any such act in future. He said the power plant would start production with its full capacity shortly due to the efforts of the PML-N government but the main issue was of the transmission lines. The previous government did not carry out any work on transmission lines but the PML-N government was also working on power transmission lines for resolving the energy issue, he said and added that the government would explore all possible avenues to get cheap electricity for the people adding that electricity could be purchased from some Central Asian States and Iran to meet the country's needs.
Pervaiz Rashid regretted the fact that no serious efforts were made by the previous governments to deal with the menace of power load shedding and outages. He said the incumbent government had started a number of power generation projects to deal with the problem.
The minister said that vibrant and free media was imperative for democracy and the PML-N government believed in free media. Regarding North Waziristan operation, the minister said people of the area were made hostage at their own homes and land and it was the responsibility of the state to rescue the land and people from usurpers and terrorists. He said the armed forces had been doing the rescue work in NW and soon people would return to their homes safe and sound.
Rashid said it was very strange that Dr Tahirul Qadri predicted events before they took place and named the responsible, adding that PTI leader Shah Mehmood Quershi was predicting about the August 14th PTI rally and named people although nothing had happened yet.
“Those, who are talking about revolution want to create hurdles in the ongoing military operation in NW through their so-called revolution propaganda,” he said.
Addressing the students, the minister said that the educational institutions like NCA should be promoted in the country as these institutions promote peace and love through their art work in hearts and minds of the people. He lauded the services of NCA and said hundreds such institutions should had been established.
Earlier, the minister inaugurated a painting exhibition at Zahoor-ul-Ikhlaq Gallery at the NCA. He took round of the exhibition along with NCA principal Dr Murtaza Jafri and Dr Saeed Elahi and lauded the art work displayed on the occasion.