LAHORE: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has asked why Imran Niazi is considered above the law despite disrespecting the Constitution and committing contempt of the court.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, he said Imran Khan used abusive language against institutions and courts; he was involved in foreign funding scam, he said the country could become Sri Lanka, he claimed division in the forces and attempted to involve courts in political cases by pressuring them through the social media, but no legal action was taken against him despite all these things.
He said that it was Imran whose government signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which brought stress on the country’s economy. “It is you who is responsible for destruction of Pakistan’s economy,” he told Imran Khan. He said the coalition government was trying to restore credibility of the country by honouring the IMF agreement, signed by the previous government.
Ahsan said that Imran had gathered all thieves and dacoits in his cabinet when he was in power, but called his opponents thieves and dacoits. He alleged that Niazi manipulated the National Accountability Bureau actions against his political rivals. He challenged Imran Khan to show a single project, from Karachi to Peshawar, which he completed during his tenure as the premier.
He asked where Niazi spent development funds during his tenure, what happened to his promises of one crore houses and five lakh jobs, adding that now he would not be allowed to mislead the youth by selling new narrative of slavery.
“We will not allow you to hide your ineligibility under the cover of your so-called narrative,” he said. The minister said that demand of the coalition government about constitution of full bench to hear the Punjab chief minister election case should be taken seriously, as it was important to avoid any dispute.
He said the coalition parties wanted to protect the sanctity of the courts at any cost. The minister said that Qasim Suri remained an MNA and the deputy speaker of the National Assembly on a stay order for around two-and-a-half years and committed contempt of the court as well.
He violated the Constitution, but no action was taken against him. He said that the Punjab deputy speaker should also be respected like the speaker of any other assembly. He alleged that Imran Niazi was working to create anarchy and instability in the country.
He said that Imran used the same method in Pakistan to hijack the electoral process by using foreign funding, which was employed in the United States by Donald Trump. He said that Imran employed 1,400 social activists in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for Rs 25,000 monthly salary each and they had been pursuing a campaign against the national institutions.
He said that the PML-N and its coalition parties played a responsible role to save the country under the current situation. When he was asked that there were some efforts under way to bring all political parties on the table to sort out a political solution to the current crisis, Ahsan Iqbal said that if Imran Niazi was looking for an NRO in his foreign funding case on the pretext of reconciliation, the coalition government would not accept it.