Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Tuesday said Yausaf Raza Gilani is a compromised leader of the opposition in the Senate as everyone knows very well how he secured the Senate seat. Speaking on the floor of the Senate, he said the House knew that the present leader of opposition had won the Senate seat by horse-trading and was still facing the case in the Election Commission of Pakistan. He said there were videos of Gilani’s son who had been making efforts to buy votes for his father in the Senate elections. He said it was the PPP that tricked the PML-N, which was a majority party in the Senate, and managed to win the slot of opposition leader through unfair means. Qureshi predicted that the opposition leader would withdraw his resignation as it was just a drama to hoodwink other parliamentarians. He warned the senators that “the leader of the opposition is the compromised leader and do not rely on him,” and asked why the PPP ignored the seasoned parliamentarians like Mian Raza Rabbani and Sehrry Rehman for the slot of leader of opposition in the Senate.
He said Yusuf Raza Gilani, being a senior parliamentarian, gave an irresponsible statement the other day, accusing the chair of facilitating the passage of the SBP amendment bill. He said leader of the House in Senate Dr Shahzad Waseem had clarified that the chairman Senate had exercised his right as per the rules and the law. Qureshi said the opposition leader had been giving clarifications about his absence from the House when the SBP bill was being passed, which was already on orders of the day. He said Gilani portrayed as he was unaware of the bill’s presentation despite the fact the PPP had been opposing it in the National Assembly and supposed to do the same in the Senate. The minister said the opposition leader himself asked the independent Senators including Senator Dilawar to ensure their presence in the House on the day when the SBP bill was scheduled to be taken up, but himself skipped from the House proceedings.
