LAHORE: Former premier and PML-N senior vice-president Shahid Khaqan Abbasi alleged on Wednesday that Prime Minister Imran Khan had received Rs700 million from Mohammad Abdul Qadir for making him a senator from Balochistan.

“Imran Khan will have to be answerable for receiving Rs700m to make him (Mr Qadir) a senator. Even the PTI’s own people are saying that this man was made a senator after he paid Rs700m to Imran Khan,” Mr Abbasi told reporters here.

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday in a meeting with the Senator-elect welcomed Mr Qadir into the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) despite strong opposition from the party’s Balochistan leadership and zonal heads, who had earlier compelled the central leadership to withdraw a party ticket awarded to him.

“He (Mr Qadir) contested the Senate poll as an independent candidate. Who voted for him from PTI? And now Imran Khan has included him in the PTI against Rs700m. Soon this man will speak about the payment of Rs700m,” Mr Abbasi said.

The former premier further said there had been no comparison of the corruption committed by the PTI government with that of its predecessors, but the courts, the NAB and the Anti-Corruption Establishment were silent over it.

“The court should take a suo motu notice in such cases. Suo motu was taken against an elected premier (Nawaz Sharif) and he was removed from his office. People know what is happening today,” he said.

To a question whether the establishment was neutral in the Senate chairman election, Mr Abbasi said: “We want [to believe] what the DG ISPR had said that the army had no involvement in politics. It should be like this. But what happened in the Senate polls and the prime minister’s vote of confidence negated that statement of the DG ISPR,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2021