Daily Times

SIALKOT: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, while addressing a political gathering in Sialkot on Wednesday, warned his opponents that today he was being held accountable, but tomorrow others will be made to walk the same path.

“I am not worried about my accountability because if I am being held accountable today, others will face accountability tomorrow,” he said.

Nawaz was hopeful that the people would silence his critics in the 2018 general elections. “Feel free to hold me accountable but at least tell me what I am accused of. Tell me where I was involved in corruption,” he asked. “You are asking us to show the money trail from 1972, but the way you looted us and nationalised our businesses … it is you who should show the money trail for where that money was spent,” he said.

“Is Nawaz Sharif involved in a corruption or a kickback case?” he asked his opponents and critics. He said that his political opponents after miserably failing to establish allegations of corruption or misuse of national exchequer against him had started levelling false allegations against his family and their private business.

“If Nawaz Sharif has accumulated illegal wealth, provide any proof from 80s to 90s and till this date. Instead, my family has been asked to provide money trail from 1972 when I was a school going child,” he said, as he called for justification of deprivation of their factory under the nationalisation drive by the Bhutto’s regime. He said late Bhutto had seized his father’s factory and handed over to his party workers.

In apparent allusion to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman, the prime minister said the people of the country had not voted him to rule them. “So how it could come that you rule the country as a prime minister. The people of Pakistan will not let you do such shabby politics,” he maintained.

The prime minister said on daily basis, his political opponents were using foul language and levelling hollow allegations against him. “But we are not reciprocating the same … people of the land will respond to these antics through their votes in 2018,” he added.

Published in Daily Times, July 20th, 2017.