All Parties Conference (APC) was held in Skardu under the arrangement of PPP Baltistan division, which was attended by the leaders of different political parties of the region. According to the declaration of the APC, it was demanded for the provision of constitutional rights to the people of the area and holing of local body polls in the region. It was further demanded in the said declaration that funds be provided to the government of the region according to the formula of NFC Award, distribution of wheat on transparent method be ensured and electricity projects shall be completed on war footing basis besides expenditure of the non-development budget of the area on transparent method. It was also demanded by the participants of the APC that judges in the higher judiciary of the region be appointed with-out further delay under the existing scheme of law. PPP regional chapter President AmjadHussain Advocate, PML-N regional Chapter PresiHafeezurRehman, Ex-Speaker G-B Assembly Fida Muhammad Nashad, ITP representative Sheilh Ahmed Hassan Turabi, DBA Skardu representative and ACC Baltistan region President and other leaders have participated the conference.
Provision of constitutional rights to the people and determination of regions legal status under the ambit of Constitution of Pakistan-1973 was the long-standing demand of the G-B people. Present Governance system of the region was being managed through the executive orders issued by the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs Islamabad instead of governing the region according to the provisions of the Constitution of the country. It is pertinent to pertinent here that Ex-Prime Minister/PML-N President Nawaz Sharif had constituted a committee in 2015 under the chairman ship of late Sartaj Aziz to examine and recommended the proposals for determination of regions legal status and said committee with the consultation of all stake-holders had proposed in 2018 for granting of interim province status to the area till the determination of Kashmir dispute. Where-as on 17th January 2019, a seven member bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan had also directed the federal government led by PTI to provide the rights the people of G-B like other provinces of the country with-in two weeks and had also appended an Order as part of the judgment (i.e being known as Order-2019) and the Order-2019 would remain enforce till the conferment of interim province status to the area by amending the provisions of the Constitution of Pakistan, but very unfortunately , neither Order-209 was enforced nor Supreme Court of Pakistan directives were implemented till to-date. Now an APC was held under the arrangement of PPP Baltistan division and according to its declaration, it was demanded for the provision of constitutional rights to the people and holding of local body polls in the area as well as other demands. It would be imperative to point out here that incumbent federal government was being led by PML-N duly supported by the PPP and regional chapter presidents of both the parties were present in the APC and supported the declaration of APC, but these leaders had not pointed out as to why their government was un-able to provide the due rights to the people of the region especially in the presence of Apex Court decision in this context. As regards with the holding of local body polls in the region, last local body polls were held in the region during the year 2004 and two decades have been lapsed, but local body polls were not being held in the region despite of the hectic efforts of the CEC of the region Raja Shahbaz Khan. All other issues raised in the APC declaration were too important and government of the region was needed to take necessary steps to resolve the issues falls under its administrative control.
It would be appropriate for the major political parties of the region to organize such type of APC’s time and again to develop concesnus amongst the stake-holders regarding the determination of regions legal status under the ambit of Constitution of Pakistan-1973…….END
