Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar offering Fateha for the departed soul of late former President Sardar Farooq Ahmad Khan Lehagri at Parliament House. – Photo by APP

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz stopped short of calling for mid-term elections when Opposition Leader in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, declared on Monday that this could be one of the options to get rid of the present rulers.

“Mid-term election is an option. Whenever there is talk about this, hue and cry is started in power corridors,” the opposition leader said while talking to reporters outside the Parliament House.

This is for the first time that the PML-N has talked about the possibility of mid-term elections in clear terms and that too on a day when party chief Nawaz Sharif convened a meeting of senior party leaders and members of the Central Organising Committee in Islamabad on Nov 5.

According to Chaudhry Nisar, holding of mid-term elections is not an unconstitutional act. “Voices are coming from streets that we be saved from the present rulers and I hear these voices,” he said, adding that it was due to the performance of the government that the people want to get rid of it.

Some political observers believe that after Chaudhry Nisar’s remarks, there is a possibility that the PML-N may formally call for mid-term polls in the near future.

The ruling Pakistan People’s Party, on the other hand, immediately ruled out mid-term elections. The coordinator to President Asif Zardari for Punjab, Naveed Chaudhry, stated that there was no provision of mid-term elections in the Constitution. The PPP member said the opposition always talked about problem, but it had never suggested any solution.

He ridiculed allegations by Chaudhry Nisar about massive corruption, wondering what he had been doing as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) if these charges were true.

Naveed Chaudhry said the government was about to launch a “social reforms programme”, claiming it would bring about a visible change in society.

Chaudhry Nisar expressed his surprise over the move of Interior Minister Rehman Malik to set a Nov 7 deadline for launching an operation against corruption in departments under his ministry, asking who would check corruption in departments other than Nadra and FIA. The rulers, he added, were stuck in the quagmire of corruption.

The opposition leader lashed out at the government for increasing oil prices, a few hours before the sessions of the parliament. “This decision has made the present parliament sessions irrelevant,” said Chaudhry Nisar, whose party earlier submitted an adjournment motion to the National Assembly secretariat seeking a debate on the issue.

In reply to a question, he said his party had no plans to hold any long march or to impeach the president. “Holding a long march is not a joke” was his response to the question.