BNP not to vote for budget: Mengal

ISLAMABAD: Balochistan National Party (BNP-Mengal) Sardar Akhtar Mengal has hinted that his party would not vote for adoption of the budget that was presented in the National Assembly on Tuesday.Talking to The News in Parliament House, immediate after the budget presentation, he said that nothing tangible has been allocated for Balochistan in the budget that doesn’t merit the budget proposals for his party’s vote but furthermore significant is six points that provided the basis for BNP-Mengal alliance with the PTI in the federal government, and unfortunately no follow up action has been taken by the government to implement it so far. Sardar Akhtar Mengal said that his party is disappointed not only about the budget but regarding the conduct of the government.To a query, he said that the government has constituted a six-member committee for the implementation of the six-point accord. “Unfortunately, the committee has been established after much delay and in haste.“A thing done in haste couldn’t serve the purpose sometimes,” he maintained. When reminded that the contract between the BNP-Mengal and PTI has to expire in late August this year, Sardar Akhtar Mengal said with laughter that the agreement isn’t a passport that would expire on the date given on it. “It could be revoked earlier,” he added.Meanwhile, sources told this scribe that BNP-Mengal didn’t attend the ruling parliamentary party meeting that was held on Tuesday noon in the Parliament House with Prime Minister Imran Khan in chair.The BNP-Mengal sits as an independent group in the National Assembly, and it has been supporting the opposition on different issues these days. A meeting between Sardar Muhammad Akhtar Mengal and Prime Minister Imran Khan took place last month but stalemate still persisting on the implementation of the six-points especially on the question of missing persons.“There is no question of any move forward without progress on the question of missing persons,” the Sardar said emphatically. The BNP-Mengal which has four members in the National Assembly voted for Imran Khan in the election of the prime minister in August last and the votes belonging to the BNP-Mengal were the difference in the contest between Khan and his rival candidate.

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