Abidi has clandestine support from PPP legal minds

By Manzoor Qadir

ISLAMABAD: Despite being issued show-cause notice by his own party for his severe criticism of CJP Iftikhar Chaudhry, Faisal Raza Abidi has full reticent and clandestine legal support of the party’s best legal minds to encounter expected trial in the apex court.

A source in the PPP confided that the party’s hawks drafted two different legal outlines to tackle the ongoing judicial tussle with the apex court. One is coined to help the legal team of the government, which will file a review petition against the annulment of the recently passed contempt of court law, while the second would help Abidi face the court in his personal capacity.

The sources further revealed it was also a part of the strategy to detach the party’s leadership from Abidi’s comments against the court to give a message that the party leadership had nothing to do with its loyal and adamant worker. They said Abidi is one of the few party’s leaders who had cold nerves and argumentative minds, and it is not possible that Abidi’s adventure did not have backing of the party’s stalwarts.

Abidi has prepared all the required documents he could use in his arguments if summoned in a contempt case by the apex court, and there is least chance that he would seek an unconditional apology. Abidi is cool and confident about the allegations he levelled against the judiciary during his press conference.

On the other hand, some political circles in Islamabad claim that Abidi’s press conference was not in his personal capacity rather it was part of the ongoing planned move by the party leadership to malign the CJP. While another circle claims that Abidi’s move is a reflection of a particular mindset of an influential group within the party constantly pressuring the leadership to start a full-fledged confrontation against the judiciary.

However, the sources said the party leadership is in a fix since the best legal minds of the country had failed to give any relief to the government in the NRO case and the government still has no proper plan to get out of this crisis. The sources said the PPP hawks say the government should create a do-or-die situation so it could then pretend to be a judicially martyred party for gaining support in the upcoming elections.

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