Islamabad, Oct 24 (IANS) The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has issued show-cause notice to former information minister Sherry Rehman for indiscipline after she violated the party’s decision to boycott a media group.
The PPP Saturday also suspended the membership of Senator Safdar Abbasi. Rehman and Abassi are both members of the party’s central executive committee, Dawn cited sources as saying.
Rehman and Abbasi were issued notices for participating in talk shows on a private TV channel in violation of the party’s decision to boycott the group that owns the channel.
A group of women gathered outside Rehman’s Karachi residence and burned her effigy to vent their ‘outrage over her participation in a talk show hosted by a channel which is slandering our leadership’.
Rehman was not home at the time.
The member of the National Assembly said she had so far not seen the show-cause notice.
‘As it stands, I had no official communication from the party about any ban on any channel, because I had heard several different members speaking on all channels, but bizarrely, I am being targeted. In the absence of any communication, I followed the PM’s and the president’s announcements that we have no war with any media channel,’ she told the daily.
To a query, she said: ‘I have been a senior office-bearer in this party and minister in this government, and have always acted responsibly on behalf of both. I have never spoken against my party despite whatever has been done, so will see what this show cause is about and certainly respond.’
Senator Abbasi said that he had received the suspension letter from the party’s secretary general, Jahangir Badar and he complained that he was not given sufficient time to reply to a show-cause notice that was issued to him Oct 20.
