Elahi regrets ‘hurtful’ remarks about Fawad

LAHORE: Senior leader of Pakistan Muslim League Quaid (PMLQ) Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi on Thursday tendered an apology for using objectionable words against PTI Senior Vice-President Fawad Chaudhry, a TV channel reported. The former CM Punjab said he had old ties with the family of Fawad.

Earlier, taking a jibe at PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s close aides, Elahi, without naming Fawad Chaudhry, on Thursday said it would have been more “favourable” had he been arrested earlier.

Addressing an event in the city, Elahi said: “Imran Khan’s close aides struck at the roots of PTI. One out of four or five people, who are close to Khan, has been arrested. Things would have been better had he been arrested earlier.”

Former chief minister Punjab said he had asked Imran Khan to let him work for more time as chief minister, and not to dissolve the Punjab Assembly, but he did not listen to him. Now the party was facing the consequences.

“I asked them let me do the work. Now the [Punjab] Assembly has been dissolved. See what is happening now,” he added.

Elahi claimed that Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) politics would have been buried had he been allowed to work for one more year. He said there was no need to test the people who were tested on May 25. Those members of assembly who were given more funds were raising hue and cry to press Imran to dissolve the assembly. Highlighting his government’s achievements, Elahi claimed that he did five years of work in just a short span of five-and-a-half-months.

Terming Imran Khan the most popular leader of Pakistan, Elahi said that he was given the slot of chief minister by the grace of Allah and due to the trust of PTI chief.

The former chief minister recalled that he had warned Khan that they [ruling Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)] would victimise them [PTI and PMLQ] if the assemblies were dissolved.

He also slammed caretaker CM Mohsin Raza Naqvi for allegedly victimising the political opponents. “Will you not return home?” he asked. “Do good deeds so that people remember you,” the PMLQ leader suggested to the interim provincial chief executive.

Separately, in an audio conversation, which went viral on the social media, the former CM was heard using abusive language against Fawad Chaudhry for being an advocate of the dissolution of Punjab Assembly.

Meanwhile, PMLN senior leader Khawaja Muhammad Asif said in a statement that what Pervaiz Elahi said about Fawad Chaudhry was regrettable. He said the PTI must rue Imran Khan’s decision of joining hands with the PMLQ for forming a government in Punjab.