PML-N says PTI govt failed on every front

Ahsan Iqbal, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi demand fair election in G-B, NA session on Kashmir

ISLAMABAD:

Top leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Thursday fired a broadside against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government and Prime Minister Imran Khan, accusing them of failing the country on every front.

PML-N leaders, former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, told a press conference at the Parliament Lodges that this was the government of “personal friends and cronies” but its days were numbered.

The current government is the most corrupt in the country’s history. The government of friends is not going to last long. Friends of Imran Khan are about to leave,” Iqbal told reporters. “It is not the opposition weakening the government, but the rulers themselves undermining it with their deeds.”

He said that the rulers had wreaked havoc with every department of the government and the time had come for them to pack and leave. “Now it’s time for them to leave. This time it will not be the minus-one but the minus-PTI,” he added.

According to Iqbal, the poor performance of the government had raised questions on every institution. He particularly mentioned the aftermath of the May 22 air crash investigation. “Are these rulers friends of Pakistan?”

Commenting on the election in the Gilgit-Baltistan, Iqbal alleged that political bribes were being offered to officers in the region. He warned that the country could not after any “kind of dispute” in the present circumstances. “We will not allow any rigging,” he said, demanding transparent elections in the region.

Talking about the tragic incident in Occupied Kashmir on Wednesday, Iqbal said that a grandfather was martyred by the Indian Army in front of his three-year-old boy and the pictures of the body with the child sitting on it had shaken the whole world.

“Every day in Kashmir, children are being martyred in front of their parents. “The prime minister should have called the US president, British prime minister and all members of the Security Council to discuss the issue,” he added.

Iqbal again blamed the government for not doing enough on the Kashmir issue. “The lockdown in occupied Kashmir is about to complete one year, but our government did not do anything except for making speeches. Our government wasted a whole year,” he said.

“The nation will not forgive the sins of the Prime Minister on Kashmir,” the PML-N leader said. “I demand that a session of the National Assembly on the Kashmir issue,” he added.

Speaking on the occasion, former prime minister Abbasi warned against selling and buying votes in the G-B election. Talking about the ban on PIA flights abroad, Abbasi, who himself is a pilot, said that he would hold a separate press conference later this week on this issue.

Referring to the sugar scandal, he said that the sweetener was procured by paying more than Rs8,300 per tonne on the old tender. He urged the Supreme Court to take suo moto notice of this, adding: “We will also file a petition.”

He alleged that there were so many instances of corruption in the government. “The sugar problem has been going on for 21 months. Sugar is being sold at Rs85 but the government does not care,” he said, adding that Inquiry commission should have investigated why sugar became so expensive.