Should the public and private life be kept separate - in politics?
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
PPP leaders slam smear campaign against Taseer
** Say political differences do not justify use of offensive language towards opponents’ families
- Governor will continue playing constitutional role
Staff Report *
LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leaders on Monday condemned a smear campaign against Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and said mudslinging and abusive language served no democratic purpose. They condemned attempts by vested party and media interests to malign the Governor’s children and family.
They were responding to a press conference by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah in which he had shown a picture of Governor Taseer with family and friends at a dinner table with an alleged bottle of alcohol on the table.
PPP leaders Rana Aftab Ahmed Khan and Qasim Zia said political differences did not justify use of offensive language towards people’s families. “Even the worst of enemies show respect towards each other’s families.”
They said their own family values stopped them from publicising scandals of Sanaullah’s own political leaders.
Taseer belongs to a noble and renowned family, they said, adding that people could not be fooled with digitally-altered photographs.
They said the governor was playing his constitutional role in Punjab and no one could stop him. “Giving advice to the chief minister is the constitutional privilege of the governor,” they said, adding the letters of advice the governor had recently sent to the Punjab government were in accordance with the law.
“Sanaullah should study the Constitution of 1973 to know about the constitutional status of the governor,” they said.
Meanwhile, members of opposition in the Punjab Assembly reacted very strongly to Sanaullah’s use of offensive language against Taseer and his family in the press conference.
Legislators including Najaf Sial and Samina Khawar Hayat said in a joint statement that “the murderers of women’s rights” should “look at the character of their leaders” before issuing “abusive statements about the mothers and daughters of noble families”.
“People still remember the stories from ‘Honey Bridge’ to a house situated near a telephone exchange in Gulberg,” they said, adding that promotion of mudslinging would end up in “Dama Dam Mast Qalandar”.