Ready for a disqualification reference, CM Shehbaz tells Imran

Says Imran’s politics is totally dependent on conspiracies, lies and accusations

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday threw down the gauntlet to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan by challenging him to file disqualification reference against him.

“I will wait for Imran Khan’s reference against me,” Shehbaz said in a statement issued by the CM’s house.

According to media reports, the PTI has decided to file a disqualification reference against the Punjab chief minister after what it called damning indictment of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family by the Panamagate Joint Investigation Team.

The chief minister, however, feared that the PTI chairman would skip the court hearing the reference “as he did in several other cases in the past”.



“Despite his all-out efforts, Imran cannot come into power through the back door,” he said, adding: “Imran’s accusation against me is nothing new.”

Shehbaz said he had already levelled many such baseless and false allegations. “I have already filed a lawsuit worth ten billion rupees for such a slanderous statement against me.”

He said that in a speech during a public gathering on March 23, 2013 in Lahore, Khan had promised that he would not lie again. “But, it is regrettable that the announcement proved yet another lie,” he added.



The chief minister said nothing would be left of Imran if lies and name-calling were excluded from his politics. From the tenure of Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf till today, he had always relied upon artificial support, he added.

He said the PTI chairman was provided with an opportunity to serve the people of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa “but he has failed on all fronts, and serving people is beyond his capacity”.

Shehbaz alleged that Imran’s politics was totally dependent on conspiracies, lies, accusations and abuses.

“This time, all expectations of Imran depend upon a document based on the JIT report,” he said, calling the report a ‘masterpiece of contradictions’. “The JIT report has become controversial even before it is made public.”

The second press statement issued in the post-JIT report scenario by the CM Office mainly dealt with the PTI’s threat of a reference against the chief minister.



A Punjab government official told The Express Tribune that the CM was adopting a cautious approach and avoiding any unnecessary reaction to the JIT report.

He said with the JIT report only carrying passing remarks about the CM, “he does not feel the necessity to reply to the report”.

He said since the report was against the PM and his family, there was no need for Shehbaz to get entangled with the issue.