LAHORE, Feb 21 A day after committing himself to joining the lawyers' sit-in slated for next month, PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif went a step ahead on Saturday and came down hard on President Asif Ali Zardari, accusing him of orchestrating a campaign to disqualify him and destabilise the Punjab government.

A belligerent Nawaz Sharif told a general council meeting of the party that he had decided to part ways with the People's Party in August when it became clear that Mr Zardari was protecting former president Pervez Musharraf.

“After the resignation of Pervez Musharraf on Aug 18, when we met Mr Asif Ali Zardari to get the judges restored as per his 24-hour commitment, he instead asked for parliamentary validation for the Nov 3 unconstitutional acts of Pervez Musharraf before deciding about judges. At that point of time, we realised that we cannot achieve our objective through Mr Asif Ali Zardari.”

Instead of reciprocating the PML-N's offer of cooperation, Mr Sharif alleged the president was concentrating on the disqualification of the PML-N leadership and destabilising the Punjab government through Governor Salman Taseer.

The general council also noted that smooth functioning of the Punjab government was being hampered through an “organised conspiracy.”

All such anti-democracy measures need to be condemned in the strongest possible terms, it said “Respect for each other's mandate and decency should define political environment in the country rather than pulling legs and conspiring against each other.”

It said the “political victimisation started by Gen Pervez Musharraf against the Sharif Brothers” was still going on.

“Their continued victimisation through the PCO judiciary is a dangerous political course, which must be avoided for the sake of the country.

“The PML-N condemns letting Gen Pervez Musharraf off the hook without any punishment and demands that he be brought to a court of law after restoring the judiciary to its pre-Nov 3 position for all his acts of omission and commission.”

The general council noted that the government had failed to “come up to the people's expectation of restoring judges and removing the 17th Amendment.”

Instead, it has been busy installing people of its own liking on different posts, the PML-N alleged.

Resolutions adapted at the meeting called upon the government to restore the judiciary to the Nov 2, 2007 position, take the parliament into confidence on important matters, scrap the 17th Amendment and implement the Charter of Democracy.