‘IG of liars’ Imran, Zardari to face poll defeat, says Shahbaz

BUREWALA/LAHORE: Describing PTI Chairman Imran Khan and PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari as the “IG of liars”, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said they would be defeated in the upcoming general elections. He was addressing a large rally at Burewala on Thursday, as thousands of PML-N workers and supporters welcomed him.

“This big gathering of the people is witness to the fact that the political jugglers, Zardaris and the King of Liars will be defeated badly in the next elections,” he said. “Khan and Zardari did nothing for their provinces. They can’t even show their faces in the provinces where they have their government,” he said and added they wanted to stop the progress in the Punjab through strike calls and sit-ins.

Shahbaz said Imran and Zardari have left no stone unturned to wreck the dreams of the people because they did not want to see the dreams of Iqbal and Jinnah materialise. The chief minister said Zardari should bring back the wealth looted from the country before accusing others of corruption. “They have ruined Karachi as there is garbage everywhere and broken roads are adding to the public misery,” he said. “If we get a chance, we will make Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta another Lahore," he promised.

Referring to the PML-N's recent surprise win in the NA-154 by-election, the chief minister said Jahangir Tareen had spent billions, yet Allah handed over the victory to a candidate who roamed among the people and not in helicopters. About Imran, the chief minister said:“You have just lied. You should go back home now as politics is not your forte”. He asked Imran to tell the people where is the electricity which he had promised to generate. “Is it in the sky, beneath the earth or in the mountains?”

Shame Imran, the chief minister said while adding Imran claimed that they would spend money on developing institutions – schools, colleges and hospitals – and not on the Metro Bus, but the project had been launched in Peshawar, turning the whole city into shambles. He reminded the gathering that when dengue attacked Peshawar, they had no arrangements for treatment and Imran escaped to the mountains. “[But] when dengue attacked Lahore in 2011, we fully countered and eliminated it [unlike the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa],” the chief minister said.

About the postponement of the Chinese president’s visit in 2014 due to the sit-in staged by Imran, Shahbaz said it was rescheduled to April 2015. “Had these agreements been finalised seven months earlier, Pakistan would have been much developed today. We have cleared the backlog with our hard work and completed the projects,” he noted. Shahbaz said the government has fulfilled the promises made with the people and ensured that the country no longer faces power outages.

Elaborating on other development initiatives, he said the government has constructed roads in rural areas to facilitate the people. He also promised to improve medical facilities in the rural areas. “There is a hospital under construction in Burewala. CT scan machines are being installed in all hospitals of Punjab."

Shahbaz announced that the University of Agriculture’s Burewala sub-campus would be upgraded to university. As part of infrastructure development in Vehari, Shahbaz announced the construction of a bridge on River Sutlej to connect Burewala and Chishtian. He also announced making Gaggo Mandi a new tehsil and promised a medical college at Vehari, dual carriageways from Adda Rasoolpur to Chowk Maitla, if elected in the 2018 general elections.

Before reaching the rally venue, the chief minister inaugurated several education, infrastructure, health, sports and agriculture projects worth billions of rupees in Vehari, Burewala and Mailsi, which included E-library at Vehari's sports stadium at a cost of Rs92 million, special education centre, slow learners institute, Rescue 1122 service in Burewala, mobile health unit for Vehari and up-gradation of DHQ Hospital to a 300-bed facility costing Rs625 million.

PML-N parliamentarians including MNA Saeed Ahmed Khan Manais, Chaudhry Nazir Ahmad, Syed Sajid Mehdi, Tehmina Daultana, Rana Mashhood, Naeem Khan Bhabha, Asif Saeed Manais and others were present on the occasion.