LAHORE: Irked by Nawaz Sharif’s remarks that Asif Zardari is abusing him to appease someone, the Pakistan Peoples Party says the former president is in fact trying to avoid another “betrayal” by the ousted prime minister.

In a sharp reaction issued here on Friday, PPP Information Secretary Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed alleged that “becoming a protégé for someone is the history of the PML-N and that Chaudhry Nisar, Shahbaz and Hamza are enough to appease someone”.

He said the party always supported Nawaz Sharif for the cause of democracy but the latter always tried to take personal gains from it.

He recalled that late Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan had commented when the Sharifs went into exile back in December 2000 that Nawaz Sharif sold out all the opposition by striking a deal with then army ruler Musharraf.

Mr Ahmed said Benazir Bhutto and Mr Zardari had shaken hands with Mr Sharif after overlooking his past “crimes” and accepted into the folds of the now defunct Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy but he ditched all and went into exile under a deal.

On the other hand, Mr Zardari was in prison under the cases framed by the then Nawaz government, he added.

After restoration of democracy, the PML-N leader again abandoned Mr Zardari and appeared in the Supreme Court in the Memogate scandal, the PPP spokesperson recalled.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2017