LAHORE, July 10: In a hard-hitting statement, PML-Q's 'expelled' MNA Kashmala Tariq has hurled a volley of allegations against the Chaudhrys of Gujrat including the accusation that they had been desperate to join hands with the PPP and then the PML-N, besides trying to get general elections delayed for a year.
Kashmala has been expelled from the party by its president Chaudhry Shujaat Husain allegedly at PML-Q parliamentary leader Faisal Saleh Hayat’s behest.
Talking to Dawn by phone here on Thursday, the MNA alleged that a day after Feb 18 polls, the Chaudhrys had conveyed a message to PPP co-chairperson Asif Zardari extending PML-Q support in the formation of governments at the centre and in Punjab. But, she claimed, Chaudhrys’ hopes were dashed when Zardari replied that ‘everything is acceptable except the Chaudhrys and Faisal Saleh’.
She further claimed that Chaudhry Shujaat and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi then visited Raiwind (Lahore) residence of PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif but he did not turn up to meet with them and only Saeed Mahdi, a retired bureaucrat presently acting as an advisor to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, played host to them. “It’s a confirmed news,” she insisted.
Mr Mahdi could not be approached for comments.
Kashmala also alleged that in a bid to sabotage Musharraf-Benazir deal, Chaudhry Shujaat, after reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had tried to get replaced Shaukat Aziz as interim prime minister and delayed the elections for a year.
The PML-Q MNA and a member of its ‘Reformers Group’ alleged that after using President Pervez Musharraf for their vested interest for full five years, the Chaudhrys made their cronies hurl insulting remarks against him at meetings held at their Lahore residence and at the Muslim League House after losing elections.
She said to cover up their mistakes, ‘Chaudhry group’ had been harassing her for quite sometime before suspending her basic party membership ‘for violation of party discipline’ without hearing her and taking the ‘proper course’.
She wondered that no action was taken against male party MPs in the Punjab Assembly who had openly formed a forward bloc.
“But I’ll fight it out. There’ll be no more one-sided shows now in the party,” Kashmala said thanking party’s women wing president and MNA Sumera Malik for speaking against the discrimination being meted out to her.
Meanwhile, Pervaiz Elahi, at a press briefing held here after the PML-Q’s parliamentary party meeting, refused to answer questions on the issue. However, talking to a private TV channel Chaudhry Shujaat said if they ever planned to meet Nawaz Sharif, they would do it openly.