LAHORE: The incarcerated PTI vice-chairman, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, has advised the PPP to either demand a Council of Common Interest (CCI) meeting or quit the ruling coalition in the Centre over its objections to proposed canals to irrigate land in Punjab.<\/p>\n
The PPP, which is in alliance with the PML-N in the federal government, has expressed serious reservations over a plan to build new canals on the Indus River for farming in Punjab\u2019s Cholistan region.<\/p>\n
The PPP leaders have also raised these concerns in talks with PML-N, saying the project would cut the province\u2019s water share and render its lands \u201ccompletely barren\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Friday, PML-N leader and Federal Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal dismissed PPP\u2019s concerns over the project as \u201cbaseless debate\u201d.<\/p>\n
Jailed PTI leader says Bilawal\u2019s party should demand CCI meeting; calls party\u2019s differences with PML-N \u2018noora kushti\u2019<\/p>\n
In a handwritten letter seen by Dawn, Mr Qureshi said the PPP sho\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00aduld demand an immediate mee\u00adting of the CCI, which has representatives from all four provinces.<\/p>\n
The CCI meeting \u2014 which should take place every three months as per the Constitution \u2014 hasn\u2019t been held for almost a year, Mr Qureshi said, adding that in this scenario, the demand for a meeting would be \u201cfair and within the ambit of the Constitution\u201d.<\/p>\n
Water, being a very \u201csensitive issue,\u201d required consensus amon\u00adgst the federating units as per the Constitution, Mr Qureshi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy the PPP is quiet over [this issue] being debated in Sindh,\u201d Mr Qureshi stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople of Sindh want to know the correct position [of PPP]. They are interested in the whole truth,\u201d the PTI leader stated.<\/p>\n
Mr Qureshi added that the PPP should quit the coalition if it cannot take a stand on this issue.<\/p>\n
He, however, downplayed the difference between PPP and PML-N, calling it \u201cnothing more than a \u201cnoora kushti\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to Mr Qureshi, the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), a group of political parties from Sindh, was also accusing the PPP of surrendering the province\u2019s water rights.<\/p>\n
He said if the proposed canals are built, Balochistan, being a lower riparian province would suffer the most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LAHORE: The incarcerated PTI vice-chairman, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, has advised the PPP to either demand a Council of Common Interest (CCI) meeting or quit the ruling coalition in the Centre over its objections to proposed canals to irrigate land in Punjab. The PPP, which is in alliance with the PML-N in the federal government, has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4620,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618\/revisions\/4620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}