LAHORE: Air marshal Asghar Khan suggests promotions in armed forces on a seniority basis and division of the country into 20 provinces to strengthen the federation.

“(Prime Minister) Nawaz Sharif has the habit of preferring juniors over seniors while appointing army chiefs which cultivates ill will among the officers deserving for the high office. This time he should shun this habit and pick the general as the army chief who is the most senior,” a press release quoted the retired air chief and patron of Tehrik-i-Istiqlal as saying during a meeting with party president Rehmat Khan Wardag issued here on Sunday.

The air marshal suggested the prime minister that if he for some reasons wished to give extension to serving COAS Gen Raheel Sharif he (Nawaz) should take the parliament into confidence instead of making a solo decision.

Asghar Khan said that the opposition should table a resolution in the parliament suggesting extension in Gen Raheel’s tenure and it should be adopted unanimously.

He hoped that Gen Raheel might agree to accept the extension in case of parliamentary consensus on the resolution.

The former air chief who had been taking active part in politics until 1990s was also quoted as proposing division of the federation into 20 federating units but the new units must not be linguistics based. The Tehrik-i-Istiqlal has earlier been calling for 12 provinces in the country to cement the federation.