LAHORE, Oct 26: PML-N President Mian Shahbaz Sharif holds politicians as well as generals responsible for the situation facing the country at present. But he says time has come that mistakes of the past should be ignored to reconstruct Pakistan.

He expressed these views while addressing a ‘public meeting’ in Manchester, UK, on Sunday, with which he started political activities despite being in exile.

According to a press release issued by his spokesman in Lahore, Mian Shahbaz Sharif said his party had already decided to work to make the country as had been envisioned by the Quaid-i-Azam and Allama Iqbal.

His speech was critical of the military leadership and at the same time indicative of a desire to make a fresh start, leaving behind whatever had happened in the past.

The military rulers, he alleged, had always caused a damage to the country. The present rulers could have been acceptable if they had implemented half of what they had promised to eradicate political corruption, price hike and unemployment and restore genuine democracy. “Though the situation is grave and worrisome, we don’t want to turn the country into a battlefield. We are not opposed to the army as an institution; we respect it. But we are against those who violated the Constitution, dismembered the country or weakened it to serve their own interests”.

The PML-N president said today justice was being sold in police stations, tyranny was ruling supreme, corruption had become order of the day and even genuine problems would not find solution without graft.

Alluding to allegations that politicians could not run the country, Mian Shahbaz Sharif said he would like to ask the relevant people if the nuclear tests had been carried out by politicians or the military rulers. He claimed that then president Bill Clinton had offered $5 billion to Mian Nawaz Sharif in several telephone calls to prevent the then prime minister from carrying out the tests. But, he said, Mr Sharif ignored the incentive and did what was in the greater national interest.

He said it was regrettable that a leader who had laid the foundation for the nuclear programme of the country had been hanged and the other who had made it a nuclear power was banished.

On the other hand, he said, Gen Yahya Khan was buried with a 21-gun salute.

He alleged that Rs 19 billion had been devoured by corrupt ministers during the past three years.