LAHORE: The provincial leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party has alleged that former Punjab governor Latif Khosa is castigating the PDM government only because his son was not given the coveted office of Attorney-General of Pakistan.

Punjab acting president Rana Farooq Saeed told a press conference here on Tuesday that Mr Khosa wanted to see his son Khurram Khosa as attorney-general, however, when his demand was not met due to certain reasons, he resorted to “blackmail” the government.

“We don’t want Latif Khosa and his son to cross the red line of the party and Khurram should stop saying (unfounded) big things (against the party), otherwise, they will be paid back in the same coin,” he warned.

Inaugurating a “Wall of Shame” at the party’s Central Punjab Secretariat here, along with its provincial leader Faisal Mir, Mr Saeed said Latif Khosa had joined the PPP as an ordinary lawyer and was a paid counsel in the cases of late Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari. After the party came into power, he was appointed as the attorney general and and later Punjab governor and then adviser to the prime minister, he added.

“After [getting] so many favours, he [Khosa] should not have adopted such attitude. He can’t get what he wants through blackmail. The father-son duo had hijacked the entire PLF [People’s Lawyer Front -- the lawyers’ wing of the party],” Mr Saeed said.

Regretting that after getting so many benefits, Mr Khosa was now sitting with the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan, he appealed to the PPP leadership to terminate the basic membership of Latif Khosa and dismiss him from the party.

“Those who get respect without hard work cannot sustain it,” he commented.

In response to a question, Mr Saeed said the party would field its candidates on all seats in Punjab and enter an alliance only after winning the polls.

Mir said that photographs of those who cheated the party after enjoying coveted positions and privileges would be hanged on the “Wall of Shame”.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2023