LAHORE: In response to Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s dare for debate, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) President Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday said heavy rains in Karachi a day ago had drawn a comparison between the civic infrastructure of the port city and Lahore.
Addressing a press conference in Lahore, the former prime minister said the “sea of water in Karachi portrayed a picture of ruins” last night. PMLN leaders Marriyum Aurangzeb, Ishaq Dar and Azma Bokhari were also present on this occasion.
Heavy rain coupled with thunder and lightning Saturday night wreaked havoc in parts of Karachi as rainwater mixed with sewage overflowing from choked lines entered houses and hospitals in the port city.
Following the rain, major arteries in the mega city were submerged with rainwater and commuters were stuck in their vehicles as the city administration had not taken any measures to cope with the rain, despite the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) having forecast heavy rain a day earlier.
Responding to Bilawal’s repeatedly challenging the PML-N leadership for a debate, the former prime minister said Bilawal had been calling for a debate for weeks, while he said that comparison should be drawn between performances instead of holding a debate.
“A day ago comparison had been drawn as mothers and sisters waded through knee-high rainwater and vehicles got stuck in pools of water,” the former prime minister added.
“Water is supplied through tankers in Karachi, while roads are washed with water tankers in Lahore,” he said pointing towards scarcity of water in Sindh’s capital city.
He said people would announce their decision through the ballot box as children’s future was attached to the polls.
A day earlier, PPP Chairman Bilawal had termed PML-N supremo Nawaz Shairf a “coward” for avoiding the debate challenge for which he had invited Nawaz to compare PPP and PML-N’s performances.
“They are terrified as they know that they haven’t done anything. They are pressurising the caretaker government to send Form 45 to Raiwand,” Bilawal had said about Nawaz’s hometown.
In today’s presser, Shehbaz also referred to the recent Transparency International (TI) report and credited all the 13 political parties of the previous coalition government representing the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) for improvement in the country’s ranking on the global corruption index.
Shehbaz said the Transparency International report was directly linked to the election and post-election.
He said the TI report established who the thief was. The corruption index again rose to 140 in the PTI’s era, he added.
Pakistan’s ranking on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) improved during the PDM-led government in 2023.
The improvement in ranking reflects that the menace of corruption subsided during the brief stint of Shehbaz Sharif-led government compared to his rival Imran Khan’s 2018-2022 tenure.
As per the analysis of the TI’s previous reports, corruption in Pakistan has been on the rise since 2018.
The TI’s 2022 CPI report on global corruption also found Pakistan under Shehbaz-Imran’s shared rule as more corrupt than before.
