"PPP's package just to divert people's attention from judges' issue"

Islamabad, May 27 : The PML-N has said that the PPP's proposed constitutional package was meant to simply divert the people's attention from the judges' restoration issue, as it was amply clear that the package couldn't be passed in either of the two Houses of parliament (because the government lacked the required numbers to get it through).

The constitutional package can't be successfully pushed through parliament when no powerful player, in or outside parliament, is on board, PML-N senior leader Ch. Nisar Ali Khan.

"I don't think we are in a position to pass the package in parliament when we don't have even a simple majority in the Senate..... the constitutional package was of no consequence," The News quoted Nisar as saying

"The PML-N is not on board, and so is the lawyers' community," he said, adding the PML-Q, which has a large number of seats in the Senate, has declared its opposition to any move to clip Pervez Musharraf's powers.

Nisar expressed the hope that PPP Co-chairman Asif Zardari's optimism about his proposed constitutional package was not misplaced. "As far as the PML-N is concerned we are genuinely supportive of all the issues that have been raised in the package, but our support is totally subject to the restoration of the Nov 2, 2007 judiciary through a normal National Assembly resolution to be followed by an executive order for the return of the dismissed judges."

He said his party could not be a party to amending the Constitution to reinstate the judges because this would amount to accepting Musharraf's Nov 3 action as valid, legitimising his unconstitutional steps and violation of the Murree Declaration.

ANI