PESHAWAR: Senior vice-president of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Engineer Amir Muqam said on Sunday that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan had wasted precious time and wealth of the nation on prolonged sit-ins and marches and failed to fulfil his tall claims about controlling corruption and nepotism as his own party’s people were involved in such activities.

“I know one of his MNAs has passed examinations fraudulently, but no action was taken against him rather he was elevated as spokesman of PTI,” said Mr Muqam while speaking at a public meeting at Dalazak Chowk, Peshawar. The event titled ‘dharni nahi, kaam chaheye’ was organised to counter the PTI’s anti-corruption Peshawar-Attack rally.

He said that people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa voted PTI to power in the name of ‘change’, but it failed to come up to their expectations and thus they were no longer supporting the party. “We also want accountability, but that should be across the board. Mr Khan is slinging mud at others, but he is unable to take action against his party people,” the PML-N leader said.

The leaguer said that in Mr Khan’s deeds and words did not match and added that he (Imran) was least interested to take serious steps for public welfare. He said that the PTI chief’s entire efforts were focused on becoming prime minister, but the nation would not support him keeping in view the poor performance of his provincial government.

PML-N holds public meeting in Peshawar to counter PTI rally

Urging the people to support PML-N if they wanted real change in the province, he said that what kind of accountability the PTI wanted to hold when it removed director general of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission for the only reason that he was about to take action against ‘corrupt’ ministers.

He said that it was observed for the first time that a managing director of the Bank of Khyber got an advertisement published against the provincial finance minister blaming him for corrupt practices, but PTI failed to hold him accountable.

Mr Muqam said that the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation (Pedo) board of directors’ chairman Shakeel Durrani had also disclosed stories of corruption and had stepped down as a protest, but no reforms were brought in Pedo. He said that former chief secretary Arbab Shehzad had also disclosed wrongdoings of the government who was replaced, but no steps were taken for self-accountability.

The PML-N leader also criticised the provincial government’s claims about reforms and said that the entire force was busy moving around Imran’s container which proved that the slogan of reform was baseless. “A person having own offshore companies should feel ashamed to speak on Panmaa leaks,” he said.

He said that the people were facing hardships to get quality health care facilities in the public sector hospitals and the same was the situation of educational institutions where poor students were denied admissions.

Recalling the negative impacts of PTI’s sit-ins in Islamabad, he said that Mr Khan had wasted 120 precious days of the nation for personal lust for power, but finally failed to continue the protest as workers knew the factual position.

He said that when flash floods had hit most parts of the province and the incident of Army Public School, Peshawar, had taken place the KP ministers were on container to dislodge the federal government which meant that they had nothing to do with solving problems of their voters.

Mr Muqam recalled that the PTI chief had claimed to construct 350 dams in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but could not construct a single one. He said that under the Constitution the provincial government could construct dams to overcome loadshedding, but it was unable to do so.

Referring to the development schemes like orange train, metro bus, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, overhead bridges and motorways carried out by the federal government, the leaguer asked the people to support PML-N so that such projects could be initiated in KP too.

He announced that PML-N would hold public meetings in Peshawar in September and October to be addressed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as the people wanted to support PML-N for bringing the real change. Several PML-N leaders, including Sifatullah, Nasir Musazai, Fazlullah Khan and Arbab Waseem, were also present on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2016