Stance reiterated: Shahbaz says sit-ins were part of conspiracy against nation

‘The government has succeeded in safeguarding the mineral reserves in Chiniot-Rajoa’.

LAHORE: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said on Friday that the sit-ins staged at Islamabad’s D-Chowk were part of a conspiracy hatched to damage the nation and topple the democratically-elected government.

He was speaking at a meeting of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat. Sharif said the conspiracy had been hatched in London. He said billions of rupees were spent on the initiative.

The chief minister said the nation’s largest solar power project in Bahawalpur had been completed in six months.

He said the government had financed the project from its own resources. Sharif said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would inaugurate the project soon.

He said the government had succeeded in safeguarding the mineral reserves in Chiniot-Rajoa from favourites of delinquent former rulers.  Sharif said they had tried to sell the reserves to a shell corporation for peanuts.

He said the government had foiled their designs and presented the people with the treasure.

Sharif said billions of rupees was being spent on citizens’ welfare. He said these included projects in the health and education sectors.

Sharif said the provision of clean drinking water would be ensured in all tehsils of the Punjab under the Saaf Pani Project by 2017.

He said billions of rupees was being spent on developing remote areas of the province under the Khadim-i-Punjab Green Roads Programme.

Sharif said the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro Bus Project would be inaugurated next month.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2015.