Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: PML-N leader Daniyal Aziz said on Wednesday that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Naeemul Haq’s attack on him during a live TV programme was pre-planned.

Speaking to the media outside the accountability court, he said there was nothing in his comments made during the show that warranted such a response from the PTI leader.

Further, Aziz said there was a hidden agenda behind PTI’s 100-day plan, adding that the plan was to destroy the country.

The PML-N leader said that the decline in PTI’s popularity was the only explanation of the party leaders’ rash behaviour in public.

“The PTI knows that it does not enjoy support among the public anymore. This is why there is inner-party fighting as well,” he said.

Aziz, who also holds the portfolio of state minister, said the PTI leaders were to be blamed for the damage done to the party.

According to Aziz, PTI will suffer a miserable defeat in the upcoming elections because it has been letting all kinds of politicians into its folds. “This will lead to the party’s downfall,” he said.

In a live TV programme aired on Geo News, PTI leader Naeemul Haq had slapped Daniyal Aziz following a heated argument. The minister of privatisation referred to Haq as a ‘thief’, after which the PTI leader lost his cool and slapped him.

Captain (retd) Safdar also slammed the PTI terming the party culture responsible for the incident. Nawaz’s son-in-law Captain (retd) Safdar asked in a statement what kind of an example the party was setting for the country’s youth?

“It was not just a slap in the face of the PML-N leader but also on the face of the entire Parliament,” he said, urging the PTI chairman Imran Khan to take notice of the incident.

Responding to a question on the issue, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Khurshid Shah said on Wednesday, “PTI’s style of indecency, violence and hurling verbal abuses is going to damage democracy.”

Published in Daily Times, May 24^th 2018.