LAHORE, Dec 29: Mian Muhammad Azhar on Sunday launched a frontal attack on Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali and the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, alleging that those monopolizing power and the party today were once ‘courtiers’ of the deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Speaking to reporters in the presence of Pakistan Tehrik-i- Insaaf chairman Imran Khan, and before that to a few dozen supporters at his residence, he said the prime minister was responsible for herding killers and turncoats into his cabinet and having the anti- floor-crossing law held in abeyance to lure in legislators from other parties to his side. No country’s law allowed corrupt people to sit in the cabinet, he argued.

The former head of the ruling party demanded that the government should be purged of corrupt elements even if they belonged to the PML-Q.

Ignoring the suggestion that after losing chairmanship he could also lose basic membership of the party for harsh criticism of the government, Mian Azhar said he was willing to go even to the gallows for the rights of the people.

Imran Khan and provincial president of the PTI Mian Sajid Pervez called on Mian Azhar to “congratulate” him for parting ways with the oligarchy and thus saving himself from allegations.

The PTI chief said after ennobling the corrupt, killers and the NAB-accused by giving them cabinet posts, the government should open the prison gates and set the convicts with minor offences free.

Imran believed that infested with corruption, the present system would not last long.

Mian Azhar made it clear that he would not leave the party as he had worked very hard to popularize it to an extent that it formed its governments at the centre and in three provinces.

Positive criticism of the wrong policies of the government would be his future course of action, Azhar said. He recalled that when he had launched the party, many of those at the helm at present were not willing to join it fearing Mian Nawaz Sharif. Such elements subsequently stepped in not because of any commitment but because of the party’s prospects of forming government.

Azhar said he had fought a battle to rid the party of what he called a family rule and would not allow anyone to monopolize it now. Defending his stand on party affairs, the former PML-Q president said he had opted to step down because these days people were not being respected for their principles.

About the no-confidence motion against him, he alleged that most of the signatures on the resolution were forged.

In Lahore, he claimed, only 15 out of the total 70 members had signed the motion and the same was the situation elsewhere.