Salik stands by Punjab corruption charge

Terms Maryam's remarks 'below the belt'

LAHORE:

Federal Minister ChaudhrySalik Hussain on Wednesday stood by his allegations of corruption in Punjab, saying he would respond to the legal notice served on him, while terming Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz's remarks as "below the belt" amid an escalating political row.

Salik shifted the blame for the intensifying controversy to the chief minister and her team, arguing that their aggressive reaction had turned his general observations about corruption into a full-blown political confrontation.

In two separate interviews with private television channels, Salik rejected the impression that his remarks were part of a conspiracy against the Punjab government or that the PML-Q was preparing to join an anti-government alliance.

He said the next general elections were still approximately two and a half years away and questioned which elections Maryam was referring to.

Salik maintained that he would neither withdraw his remarks nor back down from his position on corruption, adding that he would respond to the legal notice within a day or two.

"Reality is reality. I stand by it and will continue to," he said during a political talks show on a private TV channel, while responding to a question about his brother Shafay Hussain being a minister in the same Punjab government he had criticised.

He described dragging the entire Chaudhry family, particularly his father, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, into the controversy as a below-the-belt move.

Meanwhile, the Maryam Nawaz-led Punjab government launched a fresh attack on the Chaudhry family. Punjab Information Minister Azma Bukhari drew parallels between Moonis Elahi and the sitting federal minister, describing both as incompetent young men who had damaged their family's traditionally dignified style of politics. The remarks prompted a sharp response from the PML-Q, which hit back at the PML-N, describing its leaders as petty.

In a statement, Bukhari said Salik's recent remarks suggested that he had lost his senses. She said Moonis Elahi had put the Chaudhry family through one test, while Salik had put it through another. Both, she added, were incompetent young men who had caused considerable damage to the family's traditionally dignified and restrained style of politics.

Bukhari alleged that the family had developed a pattern of betraying the very Sharif family that had helped establish its political standing. Salik, she said, had begun speaking more like someone involved in street-level bickering than a member of the traditionally dignified Chaudhry family.

"Those who demean women cannot, at the very least, claim to be dignified," she said, adding that the Chaudhry family had been unable to respond to Maryam Nawaz's legal notice for a week.

She said that if Salik was unable to respond to the notice, he should resign from his ministerial position and go home. Bukhari also questioned what she described as the PML-Q's contradictory politics, asking how its leaders could continue raising allegations of corruption while simultaneously seeking government funds.

Claiming that Maryam Nawaz had accomplished in Gujrat what even three generations of Chaudhry leadership could not, Bukhari said the chief minister had given the district rights it had been denied for 50 years under Zahoor Elahi, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi.