NEELUM JHELUM: Hitting out at his political detractors, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday claimed that his party will sweep the next general elections as well despite the opposition parties’ protests and sit-ins. “They [the opposition parties] have closed their eyes like pigeons and have no courage to see the development projects started by our government from Kashmir to Sindh. They will continue to stage dharnas and anti-government rallies till elections. However, lion [the ruling party’s election symbol] will devour all the closed-eyes pigeon in 2018,” Nawaz told a gathering after visiting the under-construction 969 MW Neelum Jehlum Hydro Electricity Power Project (NJHEP) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). Nawaz asked the audience as to why the opposition parties face a defeat during polls if they have public support. “When our opponents are not in position to win elections, why they are talking so loudly,” he asked. Obliquely criticising the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the PM said the previous governments were responsible for the existing energy crisis and should be held accountable for that. “Now it does not suit them [the PPP] to protest against the power outages,” he said, adding that dharnas were aimed only at pushing the country towards darkness. The PM also lambasted Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and said due to the party’s 2014 marathon sit-in in Islamabad, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project was delayed by 10 months. Without naming anyone, the PM said ‘some’ were staging sit-ins and abusing the government and its functionaries publically in a bid to create hurdle in the way to prosperity. “However, I will not respond to their foul language. Their abusive language damages them, not us. We are working for the country to put it on the right track and will not allow anyone to stop this progress,” he added. Enumerating his government’s achievements, Nawaz Sharif said during the four years of his government no corruption scandal had emerged while a net of motorways had been established from Kashmir to Babusar Pass, which, according to him, was not an ordinary job. “When we came to power, terrorism was on the rise but now peace is returning to the country. Karachi is peaceful now. Economy is on the right track and Karachi stock market has been ranked as the top five stock markets in the world,” he said. The PM said Pakistanis in 2012 were witnessing 16 to 18 hours of load shedding but now the industries were getting 100 per cent uninterrupted power supply. “In 2018, more than 10,000 MW will be added to the system. Our government has produced enough power which has not been generated in last 70 years. We are happy to see mega project like the NJHEP near completion,” he added. Talking with reference to the NJHEP, he said, “When the electricity from this project will be added to the national grid in 2018, the entire country will witness prosperity”. He said at least 4,000 people had been working on the NJHEP and more than 68 kilometre-long tunnels of the NJHEP have been completed in the mountains of the AJK to make this energy project operational. “It is a revolution of prosperity and development which we started four years ago,” Nawaz said, adding that the project was a victim of delays and poor planning in the past and said had his government not taken interest, this would have lingered for years to come. He said no previous government had any interest or sense of responsibility towards completing this task. The prime minister said every month new power projects would come on line and mentioned the Thar Coal and Sahiwal projects that were nearing completion. He expressed satisfaction over the pace of progress in the power projects and said more electricity would bring in more employment opportunities and boost industrialisation and productivity. Earlier the Prime Minister witnessed the break-through of the Right Headrace Tunnel by the second Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM). He was accompanied by President AJK Sardar Masood Khan, Prime Minister AJK Raja Farooq Haider, Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Minister of State for Power Abid Sher Ali.