Saad asks Imran to fulfil promises instead of abusing parliament

KOHAT: Federal Minister for Railways Saad Rafique said Wednesday that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan should fulfill his promises made to the people during the last general elections instead of abusing his political opponents and the parliament.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony of Rawalpindi-Kohat railcar at Kohat railway station, the railways minister said that it was hard to understand why a person who had abused the parliament would still remain a part of the institution. Imran Khan and Sheikh Rasheed only know how to abuse and nothing else, he added.

On the occasion, he congratulated the public on the revival of the century-old railway track between the two cities. He said that Rs 600 million were spent on the repair of the expired railway bridge over the River Indus near Khushal Garh, Kohat before restarting the railcar service. Former Senator Abbas Khan Afridi thanked the minister for bringing the important railway link back to life.

Carwan-i-Amal leader Saleem Iltaf said that engineers and experts of a foreign firm had confirmed that the hundred-year-old railway bridge was now capable of supporting railway traffic for another hundred years or so.

Meanwhile, the railways minister said that Khan would have become an invincible political force had he fulfilled his electioneering pledges with the masses, Saad said while requesting the PTI leadership to stop deceiving the people in the name of sit-in protests.

He further said that contrary to this, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had always pursued the politics of development and to put the country on the democratic path, while adding that a railway track would be constructed as far as Parachinar while Kohat Express would be equipped with more facilities.

In addition, Saad said that work on all the development projects that were announced by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was going ahead in full swing. “PML-N has always opposed the politics of victimisation.” He also said that PTI chief Imran Khan was a newcomer in national politics and he would take time to mature, provided he survived like the PML-N leadership did in the last 40 years.

Furthermore, the minister said that today the country would have witnessed more development and prosperity if Imran Khan had not indulged in “dirty politics” and played with the future of 210 million families in Pakistan. He also said that PML-N inherited a politically, economically and socially weak Pakistan due to the wrong policies implemented by both Pervez Musharraf and Asif Zardari.

He said that PML-N could have formed its government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2013 but the party leadership gave an opportunity to PTI to prove itself. He said those who were calling Metro Bus a “jangla bus service” in Lahore and Rawalpindi were themselves constructing the same project at a much higher cost in their own backyard.

Moreover, Saad said that Pervez Khattak had the same amount of funds as Shehbaz Sharif but the latter knows how to deliver, adding that Khattak did not know the art of administration.

He asked the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to give a chance to PML-N in the province in the same way they gave a chance to Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Awami National Party (ANP) and PTI. He said that the former provincial government did nothing in the province but PML-N would transform the province like Punjab.

Highlighting PML-N’s achievements, he said that during the present government’s tenure, terrorism was curbed, loadshedding was reduced, and peace was restored in Karachi and Balochistan. He said the overall situation would have been better had PML-N been given the chance to undertake reforms in a peaceful environment.