ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan again criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday for what he described as running the country like a personal fiefdom.

“Imran Khan condemned the Badshahat style of governance that has been the hallmark of Nawaz Sharif’s rule every time he has come to power,” the PTI chief was quoted as saying in a statement released by the party’s media wing.

The PTI leader said: “Sheltering behind a facade of democracy, Sharif’s sole purpose while being in power has been personal aggrandisement and the building up of his business empire.”

He said the recent judgement of the Lahore High Court against the prime minister’s defiance of a ban on setting up new sugar mills in cotton-growing areas of Punjab showed how the Sharifs had always seen themselves against the law of the land.

The ban on setting up new sugar mills in the cotton-growing areas was upheld by the SC; however, Mr Khan said, in a bid to circumvent this ban purely to facilitate the Sharif family’s mills, the Punjab government had notified a “relocation of sugar mills policy”.

“This reflected the Badshahat of the Sharifs where CM [Shahbaz] Sharif made a policy defying the law to benefit the Sharifs the businessmen,” said Mr Khan.

Luckily for the nation, the LHC, where this notification was challenged, overturned the Punjab government’s policy meant to serve the Sharifs’ business interests, said the PTI leader.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2016