Naimat Khan
KARACHI: As the political atmosphere heats up ahead of the upcoming general election, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto on Wednesday challenged PML-N’s acting president Mian Shehbaz Sharif and PTI chief Imran Khan to contest election from Karachi.
Speaking to media during his visit to the PPP membership drive camp in Karachi, Bilawal said Shehbaz and Imran will face worst defeat if they contested election from Karachi.
There are reports that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan will be contesting the 2018 general election from Karachi as well.
PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry confirmed that Imran Khan will kick off his nationwide tour on March 4 and will begin the electioneering after March 8.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the decision to appoint Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif as Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President was a controversial one.
Bilawal Bhutto slammed the Punjab chief minister, stating that he had to answer for the allegations against him in the Model Town massacre case and several others. “Shehbaz Sharif has to answer for the allegations against him in Multan Metro Bus and Ashiana Housing schemes,” he said.
Bilawal also slammed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, stating that the public was not at all concerned with the elder Sharif’s disqualification. “It is only the PPP that talks about the problems of the common man,” he said. “The government is not at all concerned with the problems of the masses,” he added.
Bilawal said that the people of Pakistan were only concerned about when the government would end the menaces of unemployment and terrorism. “I hope people of Pakistan will support PPP because it is the only political party which speaks about public issues and try to resolve them,” he said. “People are not concerned that why Nawaz Sharif was ousted from the premiership, they only want elimination of unemployment, poverty and terrorism,” he added. He claimed that only his party can make Pakistan a prosperous and developed country.
The brother of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif took a small step closer to the premiership Tuesday after he was named head of the ruling party before a general election due this year.
Meanwhile, Few days after the government of Pakistan requested Interpol to bring Husain Haqqani back, chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, came up with a surprising statement, calling memogate as fake case and come hard on Nawaz Sharif for highlighting the case against former ambassador. The case was registered against Pakistan’s former ambassador Hussain Haqqani when PPP was in power in Islamabad in 2011.
“The memogate was fake case. It has no worth. Nothing will come out of it except wastage of time,” Bilawal Told media in Karachi. Bilawal alleged that Nawaz Sharif was highlighting the case just to escape action against him but it will not bail him out.
Bilawal said Shehbaz is answerable for accusations of corruption and kickbacks in the Ashiana Housing Scheme and Multan Metro cases.
Two days earlier, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar sought a report pertaining to registration of a case against former Pakistan ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani in the Memogate case. A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by the chief justice, Tuesday conducted hearing of the case.
During the hearing, the additional attorney general informed the court that the Interpol sent some questions to the Government of Pakistan on February 22, and the authorities are yet to prepare a response to it. He requested the court to hold an in-chamber hearing of the case, informing that Haqqani has lately become “quite active.”
“Haqqani’s lobby gets active with judicial proceedings; we are not against media reportage, but it activates anti-state lobby,” the additional attorney general said.
At this, the chief justice said that he does not know whether Haqqani has dual nationality or not, or how much influence does the government have on the Interpol.
The petitioner Barrister Zafarullah, in his arguments, contended that Haqqani is an absconder and he has committed treason.
Addressing the additional attorney general, the chief justice remarked, “You have still not taken the next step!”
The court directed concerned institutions to fulfill all requirements and ordered submission of a report pertaining to case registration against Haqqani.
Moreover, the hearing was adjourned for a week.
The Memogate scandal erupted in 2011 when Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz claimed to have received an ‘anti-army’ memo from Haqqani, the then-Pakistan envoy in Washington DC, for US joint chiefs chairman Admiral Mike Mullen.
The chief justice, while hearing a case related to voting rights of overseas Pakistanis, had summoned details of the Memogate case on January 29.
The memo sent by Haqqani in 2011 allegedly mentioned a possible army coup in Pakistan following the US raid in Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden.
It sought assistance from the US for the then-Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government for ‘reigning in the military and intelligence agencies’.
