Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed traded barbs on Friday as the former accused the government of discontinuing the supply of electricity in many areas of Punjab in an attempt to prevent the public from watching the Karachi protests.
While talking with Express News on Friday, Rasheed accused Qureshi of lying, saying “Shah sb, if you do not want to tell the truth at least tell a lie there are no witnesses for.”
Rasheed said that there was power outage only for a few hours in the morning due to a fault in the national grid. He added that the power outage coincided with the prime minister’s press conference regarding electricity tariff. “Do you think the prime minister would want the power outage during his press conference?”
Qureshi conceded that Rasheed may be correct, but that they had received multiple phone calls from various cities of Punjab complaining of the power outage. Rasheed replied that the PTI protest was a day long affair and that if some people did not watch it for an hour, they could watch it later. “You have been protesting for six months, has there ever been a power outage?”
Terming the incident an ‘accident’, Raheed explained that the transmission system is old, over-burdened and prone to technical problems. He added that the government was in the process of updating and improving the infrastructure.
Upcoming Lahore protest
When asked what measures the government would take to ensure that peace is maintained in the upcoming Lahore protests, Rasheed said that this won’t be PTI’s first protest and that PTI has been provided with security in every event that they have organised.
Upon this Qureshi suggested that if Rana Sanaullah and Abid Sher Ali were restricted to Faisalabad, maintaining peace would become easier.
“What if I asked you not to bring Sheikh Rasheed along?” Pervaiz Rasheed joked. “Lahore would remain peaceful if Sheikh Rasheed does not brief Imran Khan before his address.”
“I am hopeful that the Faisalabad mistake won’t be repeated [in Lahore],” Rasheed added. However, later he clarified that he was referring to the 'mistake' made by PTI protesters in Faisalabad by forcefully trying to shutdown the city.
“It’s all right if you have mistakenly uttered the truth,” Qureshi quipped.
Only ToRs need to be decided
Commenting on the progress of talks, Qureshi said that one round of talks have already taken place and that they now only had to finalise the terms of reference for the judicial commission.
He was hopeful that this would be decided in the second round of talks scheduled for Saturday.
COMMENTS (8)
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Let PTI burn out and lose its vote bank. PMLn should not engage with them and call their empty threats
@Pakistani: Agree 100%! IK gives examples of western countries, little does he know that had he uttered half of the threats he has been shooting against his opponents, he would have been moved to a small room with a tiny window, together with his side-kick SR I might add!
Lahore has become strong hold of PTI. Rasheed and Co are scared of the fact that they are loosing ground to PTI on daily basis. Same is true of my town attock.
@Pakistani: Yes, and plz do suggest that Pak need Great leaders like Nawaz, Shahbaz, Zardari, Khurshid Shah, Rehman Malik, Fazlur Rehman, Rana Sanaullah to name a few who may plunder Pak but not call a spade a spade. Way to go bro!
BTW, Go Nawaz GO :)
@Pakistani: I am sure you are not a Pakistani. Even if you are, which is hard to believe, my friend you are living in a fools paradise.
PTI should not be allow to dictate terms to pakistan. We should treat them as TTP and get rid of them. Imran Khan has become a cancer to this country.
“I am hopeful that the Faisalabad mistake won’t be repeated [in Lahore],” Rasheed added. However, later he clarified that he was referring to the ‘mistake’ made by PTI protesters in Faisalabad by forcefully trying to shutdown the city.
And this is our information minister?! Seriously, what qualifications does he have for that post? Seems like they just adjusted him there, like the young cousin who is not too good at cricket but you have to play him, otherwise uncle will get naraz!