‘Sharifs were pressured by PPP to support Dogar’

Shahbaz Sharif was disqualified by the Justice Dogar-led Supreme Court on Feb 25, 2009. — File Photo LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has alleged that President Asif Ali Zardari had once threatened that the Sharifs would be disqualified if the PML-N did not support Dogar (former chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar) courts. "President Zardari said to me in a meeting that Justice Dogar should be given three-year extension and warned that otherwise the Sharifs would be thrown out of politics," he said at a ceremony held here on Sunday in memory of Hameed Nizami, the founder of Nawa-i-Waqt group of newspapers. "I made it clear to the president that it was impossible for him (Zardari) to do so because by the grace of Allah we (the Sharifs) will continue to face him." Shahbaz Sharif was disqualified by the Justice Dogar-led Supreme Court on Feb 25, 2009. It was followed by imposition of governor's rule in Punjab and the ousting of the PML-N government. The government was, however, reinstated on March 31 by judges who had been deposed by Pervez Musharraf, but restored following a long march by the PML-N in March. The chief minister accused the federal government of deliberately suspending gas supplies to Punjab industries for four days a week in order to malign the provincial government. Blaming President Zardari for the gas loadshedding plan, he said the presidency should stop such 'dramas' because the closure of industries was depriving the poor of their means of livelihood. He said the PPP leaders had warned the Punjab government against expelling its ministers from the provincial cabinet, instead of implementing the (10-point) agenda. Referring to Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza's threat to ransack PML-N offices in Sindh if the PPP ministers were sacked, the chief minister said these people always used coercive language. He said the PPP ministers refused to quit on their own, thereby forcing him to send a summary to the governor for their removal. Federal government's failure to implement the PML-N's 10-point agenda, he said, was the last nail in the coffin of Charter of Democracy. He said the court would decide the Raymond Davis case.