LAHORE - Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Parvez Elahi said Wednesday that Army is a neutral institution and should not be dragged into politics.

This statement of the senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) comes in the backdrop of certain statements by the opposition parties. “The country is presently a victim of internal and external difficulties. Army is a neutral institution and should not be dragged into politics”, he said while talking to an independent candidate from Kasur (PP-179), Rana Mumtaz Ali who called on him at his residence to announce his joining of the Pakistan Muslim League.

The PDM, an alliance of the opposition parties, has been critical of the Pakistan Army for its alleged support to the PTI-led government in the centre. It has also threatened to march towards Rawalpindi (a symbolic reference to GHQ) to pressurise the army to withdraw its alleged support to the incumbent government.  

Parvez Elahi maintained that Pak Army and the administrative institutions had always served the country and the nation by staying neutral.  

“Whenever the country faced a difficult time, Pak Army and other institutions played their constitutional role. Be it floods, the earthquakes, internal and external terrorism, Pakistan forces have faced all these challenges undauntedly”, he emphasised, adding that all institutions including Pak Army have always attached first priority to security of Pakistan. 

Speaking on this occasion, Rana Mumtaz Ali said that Ch Parvez Elahi as Punjab Chief Minister launched rescue service, provided free medicines, free books in schools. He said all such works were never done earlier in the history of Pakistan. He further stated that the institution for the special children established by Ch Parvez Elahi was still functional in Kasur. “Impressed by the political and social services of Ch Parvez Elahi, we have on our own established social welfare institutions for serving the people of Kasur”, he said.