LAHORE: PML-N information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb has said her party won’t respond to the ‘cheap ways’ of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) to target its opponents.

“Imran Khan and his cronies act in ways that demean their adversaries & then wear this behaviour as a badge of honour. Yet it doesn’t mean we should come down to their level. We must protest IK’s policies of neglecting the poor. But we should raise our voices in a respectful & impactful way,” Ms Aurangzeb said in a tweet on Saturday.

She was referring to protests against Imran Khan in which the protesters adopted unethical ways to cricticise the premier for his government’s failure to arrest inflation and price hike.

She further said: “People are frustrated with IK @ImranKhanPTI & his policies making his ATMs rich & Pakistanis poor. But from Quaid-e-Azam to MNS our leaders have taught us to be respectful of opponents. We must not act in ways that demean our adversaries. Delinquent acts have no place in our polity.”

Ms Auranzeb said the PTI government was a complete failure on every front. “It is a total collapse -- economy, governance, infrastructure, daylight robberies like Sugar & atta -- and corruption is on the rise. Where are voters/supporters of Imran Khan...history will remember him as most corrupt and incompetent ruler. Let’s pray we survive,” she said.

Earlier, she said, the people who used to justify ‘selection’ of Imran Khan were now saying that “yes he’s incompetent,yes he’s authoritarian, yes he has U-turned or lied about every issue, but he’s not corrupt”. But Transparency International’s report is an eye opener for them. He and his team are corrupt.”

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2020