Nawaz Sharif said on Monday that a panel of party lawyers would appear before election tribunals to defend the charges levelled against him and Shahbaz Sharif through petitions challenging the decisions of returning officers, who accepted their nomination papers.
He told a meeting of former judges and representatives of civil society at his Model Town home that Aiwan-e-Sadr and PML-Q were scared of them and thus were hatching conspiracies to block the return of Nawaz and Shahbaz in the assemblies.
He said that he did not want to contest the polls but had decided to contest the election on pressure by party workers. He praised the civil society and lawyers' community for playing historic role against November 3 illegal actions of President Musharraf.
He said that they were committed to the Charter of Democracy (CoD) and Murree declaration and stood shoulder to shoulder with the lawyers and civil society in their just struggle. Former Justices Rafiq Tarar and Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui, Nasira Javed Iqbal, Bushra Aitzaz Ahsan, Asma Jehangir, Akram Sheikh, Ahsan Iqbal and Rana Sanaullah were also present in the meeting.