MULTAN: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan said on Monday that if any of his party leaders, including Jahangir Tareen, were involved in corruption the PML-N government should arrest them.

Addressing a public meeting in Lodhran in connection with NA-154 by-election, he said instead of accusing the leaders of his party of corruption the government should jail them, “Why don’t you arrest them? I would like to ask the Sharifs that they should arrest them (PTI leaders) if they are involved in corruption. I will not spare you (PML-N leaders) when I will be in power and if I make a claim that you are involved in corruption, I will send (you) behind the bars,” he said.

He said the Sharifs would not allow free and fair elections as they wanted to do corruption after coming into power.

“We will bring neutral umpires (for elections). If elections in India can be transparent, then why not in Pakistan,” he said. He said that he would launch a campaign in Punjab and National Assembly against price hike. “I will even take to streets for the purpose if it was required,” he said.

He demanded that diesel price should be reduced to Rs19 per liter as in international market it had declined to $35 per barrel.

Hamza says KP squandered money meant for power projects

“The prices of petroleum products have been further increased by imposing 50 percent General Sales Tax,” he said. Criticising the Metro bus project, he said Chashma Right Bank Canal (CRBC) project that was pending for the last 20 years could be executed with the cost of one Metro project.

Rapping the government for its agriculture policy, he said: “The production of cotton in India has increased three times during the last 15 years while in Pakistan it dropped by 30pc this year,”.

“The government even wanted to give the land of the National Agricultural Research Council to the land grabbers,” he alleged.

He said 10,000 schools for 2.5 million children could have been built with the cost of Orange Line Train Project being executed in Lahore. Meanwhile, addressing a public meeting of PML-N candidate Siddique Khan

Baloch, PML-N leader MNA Hamza Shahbaz said the PML-N government had initiated several power projects using solar energy, coal and other means in various cities of Punjab to end loadshedding by 2017, while in Khyber Pakhtunkhwah the money meant for power projects was gambled away.

He said Imran Khan got a stay order from courts against the farmers’ package announced by the government.

He hoped the people of Lodhran would vote for PML-N candidate.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2015