Lahore, Sept 21 : The PML-N has described the newly elected Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s maiden speech at the joint session of the country’s Parliament yesterday as “long on words but short on deeds”.

Reacting to Zardari’s speech, PML-N leader Pervaiz Rashid said it was more of a “play of words”.

“It is not time for forceful words alone, but they must be matched with powerful actions as well,” the Dawn quoted him as saying.

He hoped that the PPP would fulfill its promises on the 17th Amendment, including the repeal of Article 58-2 (b). “There is a national consensus on removing the 17th Amendment. The government must move on quickly on the issue so that concentration could shift to other national problems,” said Rashid.

There were a lot of expectations attached to the speech, but all of them had fallen flat, he said and added: “The president should have given categorical commitments on certain national issues like constitutional amendments, judicial crisis and relief to the common man.”

Jamaat-i-Islami acting Amir Syed Munawer Hassan termed the speech “disappointing” because, in his words, it “did not address national crises”. The President neither touched security issue nor inflation, he added.

The JI leader added: “Instead of concentrating on domestic issues, the president preferred globetrotting. He has also assumed all those tasks which, constitutionally speaking, the prime minister should have been doing.”

Zardari’s speech was also seen as a disappointment by other political leaders also. According to the paper, National Assembly members Saood Majid Chaudhry and Baleeghur Rehman, Punjab Assembly members Mumtaz Ahmed Jajja and Zulfiqar Ali and former provincial lawmaker Dr Syed Waseem Akhtar said that the President’s speech “had nothing in it about the welfare of the common man”. (ANI)