KARACHI, Aug 7: The Pakistan People’s Party on Sunday termed the statement of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain “a pack of shameless lies” in which he had claimed that he had gone to Makhdoom Amin Fahim with the offer of making provincial government in Sindh, but the PPP-P chief had put forward the condition of withdrawal of cases against the PPP leadership.

PPP spokesman claimed that the purpose behind the statement of Chaudhry Shujaat was to cover up his own “anti-democratic and anti-Sindh role” and to defame PPP and its leadership.

He recalled that in spite of historic rigging in the 2002 elections, the PPP had emerged as the majority party in Sindh and it was its constitutional right to form the government in the province. The inaugural session of the Sindh assembly was postponed again and again as Shujaat Hussain accompanied by Tariq Aziz and personnel of the agencies unleashed a despicable sequence of pressurizing members of Sindh assembly and buying their loyalties to create an artificial majority for a PPP turncoat and to install him as Chief Minister Sindh.

He said that Shujaat Hussain and his colleagues had played the same game of bribe and blackmail to manufacture an entire new party consisting of PPP turncoats to artificially create a one vote majority for their candidate for the prime minister’s slot. Even for that vote too, an MNA belonging to a banned religious extremist outfit had to be released from detention on the condition that he would vote for the establishment’s candidate, he added.

He disclosed that the establishment had offered the prime minister’s post to Makhdoom Amin Fahim as the chief minister’s post to Makhdoom Jamiluz Zaman with the condition that they should leave Benazir Bhutto. These “immoral” offers were turned down by both the Makhdooms, he claimed.

He said that false cases against Ms Bhutto and Asif Zardari had been instituted with the purpose of pressurizing them. In the face of irrefutable evidence, he said, the Supreme Court of Pakistan gave a historic verdict pointing out the mala fide and for the first time in the history two judges of the higher judiciary had to tender their resignations.

The spokesman said there was never any question of making these false cases a bargaining chip. Millions of public money had been most fraudulently pocketed under the cover of pursuing these false cases, he alleged. It was for Shujaat Hussain to explain the real purpose behind these false cases as also the real hands on whose behest the cases had been instituted, he added.

LIST SOUGHT: The PPP Monitoring Committee has asked the Chief Election Commissioner to issue the list of police officers whose transfers had been cancelled as per his orders.