Mardan power show: Open to alliance with all but PTI, says Shehbaz

Vows Punjab-like development in K-P if voted to power

PESHAWAR: Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is open to an electoral alliance in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with any political party, except the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

“We are ready for an alliance with any political party other than PTI. We will lend support for the next K-P government,” Shehbaz told a political gathering in district Mardan on Saturday.

Crediting his party’s lifetime Quaid Nawaz Sharif for materialising the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), he said that the former PM had been instrumental in generating 5,000 megawatts of electricity and reducing power outages.

He said if the PML-N formed the next government in K-P, it would launch development projects similar to those launched in Punjab.

The Punjab CM said the PML-N wanted to usher in major changes in the country, but the PTI had hindered them by holding sit-ins. He alleged that the PTI sit-in in 2014 had delayed the visit of the Chinese president, otherwise many projects would have been launched much before.



The PML-N, he said, would oust the PTI as well as the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) from K-P. “You will be confined to Bani Gala after the PML-N wins elections here [in K-P],” he said, referring to PTI Chairman Imran Khan.

The Punjab government, he said, had invested Rs17 billion in Punjab Endowment Fund, helping orphans, widows and students to obtain interest-free loans to run personal businesses. Underprivileged students, he added, were being offered the same facilities at Danish Schools which were enjoyed by children of elites in private educational institutions.

“If you want to see the proof of services rendered by the PML-N, visit Punjab and see for yourself,” said Shehbaz. “I promise if you vote for the PML-N, we will develop K-P just like Punjab.”

Speaking on the occasion, PML-N’s provincial president Amir Muqam said the PTI would hold a gathering at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore, wondering if people would be brought from K-P at state expenses.

“I don’t know what Imran Khan will tell the people in Lahore since he has delivered nothing in K-P. He has just dug up Peshawar,” Muqam said. “We will bury you there [in ditches dug up for Buss Rapid Transit project] in the next general elections.”

“If you really want to see development in your province, ending the sense of deprivation, you must elect the PML-N into power,” Muqam told the people.

He said the PTI failed to develop educational, health and other sectors. Over the past five years, he said, the PTI had not been able to add even a single megawatt of power to the national grid.

Earlier, Chief Minister Shehbaz was received at Bacha Khan International Airport in Peshawar by K-P Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra and Muqam. He was accompanied by Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed.