MURREE - Minister for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage Senator Pervaiz Rashid said on Thursday that Imran Khan was not doing politics; rather he was doing dishonesty with Pakistan.

Addressing the oath taking ceremony of All Pakistan Newspapers Hawkers Federation here, he asked why those organizing sit-in on Sept 3, were not holding Pervez Musharraf accountable. He said that nobody asked Pervaiz Musharraf as to where the money he received from the United States for fighting Afghan war had gone.

"Did anybody ask Musharraf to explain where he had spent the billions of dollars taken from foreign countries," he asked. He said after general election 2013, the PML-N had respected the mandate of all political parties and did not create any hurdle in the formation of government by majority parties, but hurdles were being created in the path of the PML-N government. "We accepted the mandate of political parties in 2013 and gave them right to form the government where they were given mandate by the masses," he added.

The Minister said that PML-N could have easily formed the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province by taking along Aftab Sherpao and Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman and Awami National Party, but it allowed the PTI to form its government. He said PPP had formed government in Sindh and Dr Abdul Malik was asked to form government in Balochistan. The Minister said that after the 2008 election, the PML-N played a constructive role and PPP was given a chance to complete its constitutional term. Similarly the PPP government was given an opportunity to complete its term in the AJK despite having a chance of changing it through a no-confidence motion. He said the people of Pakistan would carry out accountability through vote in 2018, when the election would be contested on the basis of truth and performance.

The people would vote for PML-N if they thought it had delivered, otherwise they would do accountability of the government by not voting for the PML-N, he added. He said the forces wanting to create anarchy should wait for one year more as they had tolerated the PML-N government for over three years. He said that election campaign would start next year and the political parties would contest polls on the basis of performance. He asked why it was predicted that the government was going to end after Eid-ul-Fitr or Eid-ul-Azha. Over 200 million people had elected PML-N for five years, and how a person from Rawalpindi could declare 2016 as the election year, he asked. He said when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took over after the 2013 elections, the country was facing multiple challenges including terrorism load-shedding, unemployment and lack of education and health facilities.

The Minister said the neighboring countries including China ,India and Iran were moving fast on the road of progress, while Pakistan had plunged into a quagmire .He said today's Pakistan is far better than that of 2013, as the present government had brought about considerable improvement in various areas, including law and order, energy, and economy.

He said some political parties were bent upon creating hurdles in the way of progress, and punish Nawaz Sharif for launching development projects. He said Pakistan could not match development in other regional countries over the last 15 years, but now as the development process in the country was gaining momentum, negative politics based on lies and allegations was being done to disrupt this journey. He said if Pakistan stayed behind in the progress, the future of Pakistan would neither be secured nor its next generation would get employment, education and health facilities. He said the only way of change in democracy was through the vote, and the attempts to destabilize the government would not succeed. He said the Newspapers Hawkers Federation's demands would be examined and steps would be taken for resolving their problems. He said that Health Insurance Scheme and Employees Old-age Benefits Institution were good schemes and under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) the poorest section of the society was provided financial help. He said that the cabinet had decided to expand the scope of BISP in future to assist more low income families. He said under the leadership of Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, the country was making fast progress and work had been started on several mega projects. Many power generation projects had been launched to overcome electricity shortage, he added.

PERVAIZ GRIEVED OVER

DEATH OF ZAHID MALIK 

Meanwhile, Minister for Information Pervaiz Rashid expressed his deep grief and sorrow over the sad demise of Zahid Malik, senior journalist and chief editor of daily Pakistan Observer.

Paying tribute to the deceased journalist, the Minister said that his services and contribution in the field of journalism would be remembered for times to come. His demise has left a void which would be difficult to fill, he added. He prayed to Almighty Allah to rest the departed soul in eternal peace and grant courage to the bereaved family to bear this loss with fortitude.