Senators, Senate chairman elected using riches should be sent packing: PM

SARGODHA: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Friday while further reinforcing his party’s stance said that those who had been elected as senators or as the Senate Chairman using their riches must be sent packing as they could not represent Pakistan.

“Our opponents are disturbed these days over my remarks about Senate chairman. I repeat that people of Pakistan do not accept the seats obtained using money. Those who have become senator or Senate chairman using the money, cannot represent Pakistan. These people need to be sent packing,” the prime minister said addressing the inauguration ceremony of Chaudhry Abdul Hameed Cardiology Centre at District Headquarters Hospital and two high pressure gas pipelines of 12 and 16 inch diameters for Sargodha city.

He was accompanied by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, Minister of State Mohsin Shah Nawaz Ranjha and Special Assistant to PM Dr. Mussadiq Malik besides MNA Dr Zulfiqar Bhatri MNA and MPA Abdur Razzaq.

He told the gathering that the politics of horse trading needed to be buried forever.

Apprising the gathering about his meeting with Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Saqib Nisar, the prime minister asked as why the opposition was perturbed over the interaction.

“I am the prime minister of this nation. (I am the) prime minister of this country. Chief Justice heads an institution. If I find any difficulty, I am bound to meet him and try to remove those,” he remarked.

He said the country belonged equally to all including himself, Imran Khan and even the chief justice.

“How the country will run if we confine ourselves to our office and not talk to each other,” he said recalling his statement at the parliament the government was faced with some issues to run the government affairs.

He believed that there was no harm in interaction when there was common objective of country’s development.

He said the meeting continued for two hours and “I hope he would have understood my words. I also listened to him. The countries are run this way only. This is nothing new,” he added.

The prime minister said Imran Khan also voted PPP in Senate election despite having alleged Asif Zardari of buying PTI’s 14 senators.

He said the sanctity of the vote would be undermined if such politics continued.

He said the PML-N was proud of using not even single penny in the Senate election and challenged both Imran Khan, Asif Zardari and Senate Chairman to prove their innocence.

The Prime Minister who earlier unveiled plaques to launch three mega development projects, said both Pervez Musharraf and Zardari had failed to carry out development projects like gas and power supply, roads, dams or canals.

He said as the incumbent government assumed power, the country used to import a million ton of fertilizer and also inherited gas and power crises, closed power plants and industries.

Contrarily, he said today the government was executing gas projects worth 11 billion only in Sargodha which would increase the supply threefold and end the load shedding.

He said throughout the country, one could see the development projects executed by only the PML-N government be it is roads, hospitals or colleges contrary to previous governments which used to work for minting money.

Regarding the court cases against Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister said they did not expect any justice from accountability court.

He said there were no strong evidences nor any corruption allegations against the former prime minister who had left the office within no time of his disqualification by the Supreme Court just on the basis of a residential permit (Iqama).

He told the gathering that the government did not allow the sit-ins or court cases to impede the course of national development and carried out development projects even more than Sindh, KP and even those done during last 65 years.

Mentioning the generation of 10,500 megawatt during this tenure, the prime minister said there was enough electricity to cope with the requirement however there could be some local issues.

Recounting his government’s credits of bringing down the inflation, and improving the economic growth from 3 percent to 5.7 percent, the prime minister said the 1700-kilometer long motorways was being constructed or nearing completion.

As requested by the local parliamentarians, the prime minister agreed over the establishment of a women university, cancer and children hospital besides gas supply to the rest of the localities of the city.

He hoped that the PML-N would claim even more seats in the upcoming general elections.