LAHORE:
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said on Wednesday that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan’s demand for the prime minister’s resignation has exposed his motives.
The chief minister was speaking to a private TV channel.
“The demand for the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is unconstitutional and undemocratic. Imran Khan is trying to deprive the people of their basic right by threatening to overthrow a democratically-elected government. Nawaz Sharif is a symbol of democracy in Pakistan,” the chief minister said.
“The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) believes in democracy. Anyone can protest within democratic limits,” he said.
However, he said, the government also knew how to handle anyone who threatened to derail the political system and disturb law and order.
“Khan’s ball tampering will not be allowed,” Sharif said. He said that Khan had set historic records of telling falsehoods in his political career.
“Khan claimed that Rs70 billion was spent on the Metro Bus Project. I am willing to resign if he can prove that funds in excess of Rs30 billion were spent,” the chief minster said.
He said last year, when the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz won the elections, Khan telephoned him to congratulate him on his victory. “Now he’s rabble rousing claiming that the elections were rigged.”
Sharif said that the government’s doors were open to dialogue and he would gladly meet with Khan.
On one hand, Khan decries corruption and on the other, wants to bring back the people who turned the Punjab into a den of thieves during their tenure, Sharif said.
“Khan should focus on alleviating the problems of internally displaced persons in Bannu instead of raising a pointless hue and cry,” he said.
Rana Mashhood
Provincial Law Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan said on Wednesday that Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Tahirul Qadri was levelling baseless allegations against the government.
“He lied about the Saaf Pani project because the contract for the project has not been awarded to anyone yet,” Mashhood said.
“People are fed up with Qadri’s lies and have stopped paying heed to his accusations. During their press conference, Qadri and the Chaudhry brothers lied about everything,” the minister said.
He said those supporting the long march and the revolution would be disappointed. “The issue of long march and revolution will soon end and people will see for themselves the real character of these leaders,” he said.
Mashhood said Qadri’s predictions would never turn into reality.
“These so-called predictions are the creation of his own mind and have nothing to do with reality,” the minister said.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 7th, 2014.
COMMENTS (10)
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@Khalid
I'm extremely concerned about the performance given funds of PTI in KPK. In its current tenure, due to incompetency, PTI wasn't able to create and build projects. This led to a wastage of 70% of money allocated in reserves for infrastructure projects. Last year it was 79 billion in block reserves, none of which was used and this year PTI allocated 94 billion albeit they don't know how to create useful projects.
The health budget has been reduced from 8.5% to 8% this year and incompetency of PTI budget and planners led to the failure of using 5 billion out of 200 billion allocated for it. The problem isn't about good intentions, everyone loves to have food, health and educations. The problems is about planning and performance. Its a bitter pill of swallow but PTI has got an emotional leader with 90% of incompetent advisers and planners. To perform you need a very strong team-lead like with Shahbaz Sharif. They have the best guys, they are spot-on and they are performing. They will again win elections and that is not because of PTI's self proclaimed rigging but due to performance :)
One the other note, I'm not comparing, there is no comparison :) People love Rihanna more than Imran Khan, and its most likely because she is an honest and reliable person :)
Javed Chaudhry of Express News is acting like a Rishton Wali Mai between the government (his paymasters) and PTI.
This is his second attempt--first one was a few weeks back when Imran had proposed a judicial commission to audit the votes before Aug 14. Alas, no wedding will take place....
If anything, he should be resigning for all the people he had killed in model town. Shameful.
@Sara:
you made me laugh when u compared IK with Rihana, grow up and welcome to real life. its better for you to follow Rihana because IK don't have capacity for peoples like you.
coming back to topic, this same CM showbaz was asking Zardari to go and they demanded mid term elections and with this fake mandate IK have all right to ask for resignations and for mid term election, we voted for better Pakistan not for Thief Nawaz who stole all nation mandate,
IK we are with you.
@Sara: It doesn't matter what justification u give for 2013 elections. "Sharif's" rigged the elections!
What is constitutional in Pakistan since rigging has been allowed and culprits not been punished. No crime of rulers has been bigger than justifying rigging and killing of innocent people to hide their corruption in every project #ThisIsNotDemocracy
PM wannabe Imran Khan and his party PTI says 2013 elections were rigged and they openly curse and criticize election commission, appeal election tribunals, courts which according to them failed to hold free & fair election. Now if one is to believe their story then how would they justify their govt in Kpk and their MNAs in national assembly which are also product of same 2013 election and have been elected under same electoral mechanism.
Instead of asking democratically elected government to resign just because you failed to do well in election and were unable to achieve your lifelong wish of becoming PM and living in PM house, You yourself (Imran) and your party(PTI) should resign from national assembly and KPK as you openly say that those elections were rigged
Mr CM and what was Go Zardari Go?? Wasn't that unconstitutional....Anything that hurts your petty interest becomes unconstitutional....
The problem with Dr Imran Khan is his advisers and facebook ofcourse. Dr Imran Khan or his brilliant advisers should take a course on estimations of social networks to make better predictions. Rihanna has around 89,450,320 followers compared to Imran's 2,093,106 on Facebook, but that doesn't mean we put Rihanna incharge of Pakistan. Or is the 14th August march dedicated to Rihanna?