Shafqat Mahmood slams Nawaz for calling PTI ‘anti-democratic’

LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shafqat Mahmood on Wednesday countered former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for terming PTI non-democratic and implying that it has links with dictators.

While speaking to the press, Mahmood said that Nawaz, the chief of Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N), has tried diverting attention towards PTI to conceal his crimes. “This day had to come when Mian Sahib is accusing [us] of relations with dictatorship,” he said.

The PTI leader added that PML-N itself, in fact, does not come off as a democratic party from any aspect. He said that the party has a dictatorial style of politics while Nawaz’s own leadership style is elitist. “The whole country has seen the true face of the Nawaz’s democracy,” Mahmood said.

Nawaz Sharif had admonished PTI, the ruling party’s harshest critic, and the opposition Pakistan People’s Party on Wednesday.

After attending the proceedings of the accountability court which is hearing three corruption references against him, Nawaz told the press that the “dictator’s black laws were rejected on the floor of the House yesterday”.

His reference was towards the rejection of the Elections Amendment Bill 2017, which sought to restrict disqualified parliamentarians from heading a political party after 163 members voted against the proposed change in the legislation in the National Assembly on Tuesday.