LAHORE: Governor Salmaan Taseer on Wednesday defended President Asif Zardari and said he and the PPP were being maligned under the pretext of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) which had actually benefitted a lot many politicians.

‘President Zardari is no Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Fazal Elahi or Farooq Leghari. He is the head of the country’s largest political party which is the symbol of federation. We are here and will not go anywhere,’ he said while talking to reporters at the GOR-III where he had gone to condole the death of the wife of poet-journalist Zafar Iqbal.

Wondering as to whose behest a smearing media campaign was being launched against the president, the governor said he (Zardari) was a part of the parliament and would complete his term of five years. ‘The president has not descended upon the parliament from a helicopter,’ he said.

He said the president made every political party a partner in the democracy. He united people by holding the flag of the country when it was burning on the occasion of the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The governor said those opposing the NRO must remember that elections and the return of Nawaz Sharif were a part and parcel of it. ‘We could have adopted it through the assembly earlier but we were not interested in it. Presenting it before the assembly was a court direction. And now when the parliament has decided against it, the bill will never be presented for adoption,’ he said.

He said actually a smear campaign was being run against the PPP (under the garb of opposition to the NRO). Such things were not new to the party which could never be intimidated.

The first Benazir government was also maligned with false allegations of corruption in 1989. Now some people like Pir Sahib of Pagaro and Mumtaz Bhutto had again come out for the same purpose, he alleged.