Peshawar - Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) central leader Syed Khurshid Shah on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to take suo-moto notice of the leaked audio tape of former chief justice Saqib Nisar to ascertain the authenticity of the recording. 

Addressing a news conference at the residence of former provincial minister and PPP ex-provincial president Syed Zahir Ali Shah, Khurshid Shah said that his party never supported any attempt to weaken institutions, saying that if in case former CJP did not move the court for his defence then the audio would be considered as true. 

Flanked by party’s other leaders including Qamar Zaman Kaira, party provincial president Najam-ud-Din Khan, Women Wing president Senator Rubina Khalid, Khurshid Shah suggested that former CJP should challenge the audio to defend himself. The PPP leader said that opposition parties are fully united in Parliament to resolve the issues constitutionally. He said that opposition wants to oust the government at the earliest but it would never adopt undemocratic steps for the purpose. 

The PPP leader also criticised the polices of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government and said that prices of essential daily use commodities and unemployment ratio were increasing fast with no check from the rulers to overcome the alarming situation. He said that no good omen could be expected from the “selected Prime Minister” Imran Khan, as he had always taken U-turn after his tall claims to bring change in fate of the poor masses. 

He claimed that PPP governments in the past had honoured commitments for bringing improvement in the life standard of masses, as it had provided jobs to the people irrespective of political affiliations and taken concrete steps to overcome inflation and poverty through increase in salaries of people in the country.  

Speaking on the occasion, Qamar Zaman Kaira said that PPP wanted to bring change in the Parliament but PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif had opposed the idea and suggested protests out of the Parliament.

“Had the PML-N agreed to our suggestion about no-confidence in Punjab the people will have seen change in the centre so far,” he said. He also said that PPP had parted ways with the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) due to the harsh attitude of PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. 

About the use of electronic voting machines (EVM), he said such laws were impracticable as the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had already rejected the EVMs due to certain reasons. He said that the government adopted wrong and undemocratic method for the legislation about the EVMs.