LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leaders, including Aitzaz Ahsan and Syed Khursheed Shah, on Friday hit back at Nawaz Sharif for criticising Asif Ali Zardari.
Opposition Leader in National Assembly Khursheed Shah said that Nawaz Sharif should remember the day when he had refused to meet Asif Ali Zardari to “appease someone”.
“Mian sahib should tell us who he was trying to please then. It is Nawaz, not democracy, that is in trouble today. Nawaz should stop propagating that democracy is in danger. Nawaz shouldn’t put the burden of his difficulties on democracy,” he said.
Shah said he had repeatedly advised Nawaz to take the Parliament into confidence, adding that, he had saved Nawaz once to save democracy, but would not do it again.
“What goes around comes around,” he said, addressing the former prime minister.
Later, in a statement, a PPP spokesperson said that they were not trying to please anyone, but trying to save themselves from Nawaz’s betrayal.
“PPP always held Nawaz’s hand for the sake of democracy. During Musharraf’s tenure, Zardari suffered in jail for cases lodged by Nawaz,” the statement added.
The spokesman said that Nawaz had betrayed the PPP by becoming a party to the Memogate case.
Leader of the Opposition in Senate Aitzaz Ahsan, in a statement, urged the former premier to expose the names of those who, according to him, were instructing the PPP co-chairman to speak against him.
“I have been saying for quite sometime that Sharif has been shadow-boxing. His party is in power in the provinces, yet he says a conspiracy is being hatched against him.”
Referring to Sharif’s statement during his appearance before a NAB court, Aitzaz said that the former premier was talking in riddles. “He should speak in unambiguous terms about who is hatching conspiracies against him,” he said.
“It has become increasingly difficult for the PPP to sit with Nawaz Sharif. Still, we face accusations of reaching a covert deal with the PML-N,” he said. “Sharif’s past is known to everyone. He had conspired against the then Benazir Bhutto government and put pressure on judges to punish her. Sharif was behind the disqualification of former PM Yousuf Raza Gillani,” he added.
“Sharif played havoc with democracy and hurt the PPP,” he said. He unequivocally said that the former premier was in trouble, not democracy. “Sharif has no evidence to present in his defense in corruption cases,” he said. Criticising the VIP protocol provided to Nawaz Sharif, Aitzaz said he had come to attend the court hearing with an entourage of 40 vehicles.
Published in Daily Times, November 4th 2017.
