LAHORE: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Thursday dared the opposition parliamentarians to resign from the assembly as per their announcement in a protest meeting on The Mall here on Wednesday.

“If (opposition) political parties are not satisfied with the performance of assemblies then what their members are doing in the elected houses? They should resign and go home,” he said while talking to the media after a visit of the Jinnah Hospital’s burn unit.

He said Qadri Sahib (PAT chief) had hosted the leadership of various parties at the protest meeting apparently aimed at seeking his (CM’s) resignation, claiming that “they were in fact targeting the public welfare projects my government is executing speedily and not my resignation”.

Regretting the language used by the speakers at the meeting, the CM said he would respond to it through his public service projects and challenged the PPP and PTI leadership to contest against him in the 2018 election.

Thanking the people of Punjab for, what he said, not joining their ‘political drama’ which caused inconvenience to motorists, traders and students alike, Shahbaz said the leadership of the both the PPP and PTI were not able to face the people of the provinces they’re ruling for they didn’t serve them during the last four years.

Taunts parties over protest on The Mall

What these leaders could do when elections were five months away, the chief minister asked.

Taunting the opposition parties for holding protests on the excuse of seeking justice for Model Town and Kasur victims, he recalled that his government had extended its helping hand when the menace of dengue had struck Peshawar, instead of resorting to politicking by staging sit-in in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa capital.

PTI chairman Imran Khan, he remembered, had taken refuge in the mountains of northern areas instead of serving the ailing humanity then.

Referring to the summons the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had issued for him in the alleged corruption in Ashiana Housing Scheme, Shahbaz challenged all accountability institutions to prove corruption worth a single penny in any project against him since 1997.

Responding to a query, he said that progress was being made in the Zainab murder case and that he would soon take the people into confidence on the Kasur tragedy.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2018