Reacting to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur’s address at a PTI rally at Sangjani in Islamabad yesterday in which he had threatened Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz with marching on Lahore for the September 22 rally, Federal Minister for Information Ataullah Tarar on Monday challenged Gandapur to come to Lahore and see how CM Maryam deal with him and those accompanying him, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad with another Federal Minister Ameer Muqam sitting alongside him, the minister said that the KP CM spat venom at the Punjab chief minister and the state institutions after he realized that the party’s event was a ‘flop’.
He told Gandapur that those who complained that the roads leading to Islamabad were closed could not bring a revolution. “PTI knows nothing except violence and abuses.”
Tarar said what the KP CM had said was a breach of Pashtun society’s centuries-old values and traditions of respect for women.
“The man who had threatened a woman at a gathering yesterday is the one who is afraid of terrorists and criminals in his province,” he said.
Tarar was of the view that those who hurled threats at others were hollow from within. “What you should have said in your speech was that how do you plan to defeat terrorism in your province,” the minister said.
He claimed that Punjab CM Maryam had always called a spade a spade in front of tyrants.
Speaking on the occasion, Federal Minister Ameer Muqam said that Gandapur’s yesterday’s speech was unbecoming to that of a chief minister. “In fact, it is an insult to the post,” he said.
He was of the view that the even was not impressive at all.
The minister said that when it came to cases hearings, PTI leaders and workers pretended to be sick. “But when there are rallies, they throng it in large numbers.”
“PTI’s brand of politics has been characterized by maligning opponents,” the minister said, adding, “It’s a shame that derogatory language was used against CM Maryam yesterday. But let us not forget that these people first swagger and then lick those people’s boots whom they are targeting.
Muqam accused the KP chief minister of spending the provincial resources on the PTI’s rally.