LYALLPUR: President Ayub Khan today [March 13] described the demand for the restoration of the parliamentary form of government and adult franchise as `a fire` and urged those who were demanding them `not to play with it`.

Speaking at a gathering of Basic Democrats and Muslim Leaguers at the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, the President who is also President of the Pakistan Muslim League said: `It will not only burn your hands but also engulf your entire body.

He referred to the basic democracies system and said that about four and half crores of the people in both wings of the country participated in elections, electing 80,000 representatives through adult franchise. The President was happy to note that those who were elected in the last elections had national interests uppermost in their minds.

The President quoted the example of India where the parliamentary form had resulted in `utter confusion`.

The Congress, which had ruled the country for almost 20 years, had been defeated in several Indian provinces as people were not happy with its past performance. Therefore it could not muster as much support from the people as previously.

From the conditions in India due to the parliamentary form of government Pakistan must learnthelessonsothatPakistan should alsonot be plunged into similar conditions again.

The President said that the restoration of parliamentary democracy would bring in its wake all that was prevalent prior to the imposition of MartialLaw.

`A crippled economy, a weak, ineffective and dying Centre, and chaos and confusion were some of the things which it had bred, letting loose a hell for the masses,` the President said and added that the gravest thing for any country was chaos and Pakistan could least afford it. Agencies