LAHORE-  Federal Minister for Water and Power and Defence Khwaja Muhammad Asif on Tuesday said Nawaz Sharif had the credit of playing the most vital role in sustaining democratic traditions in the country.
Speaking at a ceremony held in connection with the 41st death anniversary of Khwaja Rafiq Shaheed here, he said sagacity, far-sightedness and patience of Nawaz Sharif had proved his capability of steering the country out of the present crises and putting it on the road of prosperity and progress. He said Nawaz Sharif strengthened the roots of democracy in the country and Allah rewarded him for his act. Central PML-N leader Hamza Shahbaz, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Pervaiz Rashid, Minister for Railways Khwaja Saad Rafiq, Punjab Education Minister Rana Mashood Ahmad Khan, JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch, MQM leader Haider Abbas Rizvi, PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira, Khwaja Salman Rafiq and others also addressed the gathering.
The federal minister said due to annual de-silting and cleanliness of the canals, people would suffer loadshedding, but it would not be that protracted as they had in the past. He also asked the people to bear electricity and gas loadshedding till the end of February next. He, however, expressed the hope that loadshedding would be brought to a complete end in the coming years.
He revealed over the last six years the government faced Rs 6,000 billion loss due to loadshedding and flayed the PPP government for jeopardising the Nandipur power project just against the bribe of Rs 100 million and threw the nation to face the annual loss of Rs 113 billion.
Khawaja Asif, in the context of efforts for making democracy stronger, applauded the patience and the positive role played by the judiciary and the armed forces and said they demonstrated encouraging signs on the political horizon of the country. He said tolerance promotes democracy and, in the same vein, remarked a trend to malign the national leadership was thriving in the social media. He said in order to ensure protection of the geographical and ideological frontiers, economic wellbeing was inevitable.
Hamza Shahaz Sharif said that it was time to shun the politics of self-interest and pay attention to the betterment of the people as well as to apply balm on the wounds of terror victims. He claimed the PML-N government had taken the step in the right direction and was fully concentrating on solving problems of the masses in all the four provinces.
He said they knew that only the parties with the record of public service would succeed in the next elections. He counted various policies of the Punjab government for raising the standard of the youth and providing them with quality and inexpensive education besides encouraging them in sports activities.
Hamza said survival of the country depended on ridding it of terrorism which was not possible for the PML-N alone, so the whole nation must forge unity, adding they wanted negotiations for peace as it was vital to fetch foreign investment to the country. He warned those who wanted destruction of the country that 190 million people would not let their designs come true. “A few thousands of extremists cannot impose their will on us,” he maintained and added the final victory would of the nation if no other option but a war remained the last against terrorists.
Hamza recalled the day when he was alone in the country and his family was sent on exile by Pervez Musharraf and informed the gathering how he received the news of the death of the mother Khawaja Saad who was then in jail and was allowed to just have a glimpse of the dead body after a long wait. He said he also faced agony when his grandfather passed away.
Khwaja Saad Rafiq, speaking on the occasion, said in order to solve the national issues through a broad-based consultation, it was necessary that politics should be free of blame game. He said it was also time to force even the opponents to show performance for the sakeof betterment of the people by taking them away from the politics of bullet and towards respecting difference of opinions. He also laid stress on implementing that part of the Charter of Democracy which remained unattended during the last five years of the PPP rule.
PTI TSUNAMI TURNED INTO
BADNAMI: SANA
Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan has said that PTI is concealing poor performance of its government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Talking to media here on Thursday, Sana said the PTI was protesting against price hike but it did not mention performance of its own government in the Khyber PK. He termed the Lahore protest of the PTI a total failure and said tsunami had now turned into a badnami for the PTI.
He advised PTI to sit at home like the way Veena Malik did after marriage instead of pursuing politics of the sit-ins. He also advised the Chaudhrys of Gujrat to retire from politics since their efforts to save them in politics through supporting Pervez Musharraf had gone abortive.
To a question on Sheikh Rashid’s support to the PTI, Sana said Rashid was a street worker who made hectic efforts to get into the PML-N but was not accepted in the party. He said Sheikh Rashid was a lone leader with no significant background and no promising future.