ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) wants National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser to immediately send a disqualification reference filed by the party against Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) so that he can be de-seated.

Speaking at a press conference here on Saturday, PML-N MNA Rana Sanaullah and Senator Mushahidullah Khan said they had submitted the reference against the minister to the speaker’s office seeking his disqualification over alleged discrepancies in his tax returns. They claimed they had obtained proof against the minister.

They lashed out at Sheikh Rashid for his outbursts against the PML-N leadership, terming him a “thankless and characterless person”. They said the minister’s presence in the assembly was “an insult to the entire parliament”.

The two firebrand PML-N leaders addressed the news conference hours after Sheikh Rashid harshly criticised the Sharif brothers, alleging “Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif are mastermind of corruption in the country”.

Rana Sanaullah said Sheikh Rashid should have been thankful to the Sharifs because it was with their support that he had reached parliament and became minister many times. He said the Awami Muslim League chief had no vote bank of his own and had always contested elections with the help of other parties. This time, he said, Sheikh Rashid had managed to become railways minister with the help of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf. Otherwise, he could not even win election on the seat of a councillor.

Mushahidullah alleged that Sheikh Rashid had stabbed the Sharifs in the back when he joined hands with military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf after securing votes in the name of Nawaz Sharif in the 2002 general elections.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2019