Pakistan People's Party (PPP) strongly reacted to the criticism of the government by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and accused Nawaz Sharif of trying to drag judiciary into politics.
Responding to Nawaz Sharif's criticism of government and President Asif Ali Zardari at a rally in Faisalabad on Sunday, former Law Minister and PPP leader Babar Awan said that a large number of Punjab government employees were present in the rally. Awan said Nawaz Sharif's speech was full of tall claims and an effort to incite civil war in the country. He categorically denied that late Zulifqar Ali Bhutto had taken over the assets of Sharif family.
Awan also asked a number of questions from Nawaz Sharif and alleged him of doing politics by hiding behind institutions. He said that if Nawaz Sharif was so transparent why he was not telling the people about the details of his government's move to freeze foreign accounts in 1998. Moreover, he asked PML-N chief to also tell the people about the money collected by his government in the form of donations from people after coming into power to retire the debt of the country. Babar Awan held previous government of Nawaz Sharrif responsible for the current energy crisis and stated that after coming into power in 1990s Nawaz Sharif-led government initiated cases against the IPPs' owners. As a result investors took away their investment and power generation could not be enhanced, he added.
Criticising the current PML-N government in Punjab, he said that the fiscal mismanagement was evident from the fact that for the first time Punjab had gone into overdraft from State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) when Shahbaz Sharif came into power after 2008 elections.
Babar Awan also challenged Nawaz Sharif's claim of overcoming the Dengue virus in the province and said had Nawaz Sharif checked the record of his own hospital he might have not given this statement, as a dengue patient lately died there. Babar Awan termed Nawaz Shariff address at the rally as a trial of the graves of martyrs.
He said that the doors of the Capital were open for Nawaz Sharif if he intended to come to Islamabad but he must remember that the people could also go to Lahore too.