PM takes a jibe at PTI’s ‘rigging evidence’ claims

• Says Chinese investment not loan but investment in Pakistan

“If all the evidence is in ballot bags, what do you have? They asked for vote recount in the past, but what happened was that we ended up winning by a bigger margin,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Wednesday took a jibe at Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) while talking to reporters in London before heading back to Pakistan.

PM Sharif said the PTI had previously raised similar demands to reopen ballot bags in some constituencies in Punjab but had suffered embarrassment. “Such kind of politics should not happen in Pakistan,” he said.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief expressed satisfaction over the results of the local bodies’ elections in cantonment boards and he termed his win as a positive sign for his party. He claimed that results would be better if local government elections are held throughout Pakistan.

The prime minister said that Britain has always been a good friend of Pakistan and the two countries have always enjoyed a warm relationship. He said that British Prime Minister David Cameron was going to contest elections, which is being seen as a “neck-in-neck” contest.

Speaking about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the prime minister said that this was not a loan but an investment on the part of China which will benefit Pakistanis. He hoped that the different projects included in the agreements signed with China will eliminate the power crisis in Pakistan while boosting the economy and providing employment opportunities to the people of Balochistan and other areas that the corridor passes through.