ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Federal minister Chaudhry Salik Hussain said on Wednesday he would never withdraw his remarks about corruption in Punjab, and told Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz not to play the “woman card” in their escalating dispute.
“If you are in politics, then do not play the woman card,” Salik, the Minister for Overseas Pakistanis and a leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), said on a television talk show. He called the chief minister’s comments about him inappropriate for someone holding public office and said she had spoken on the basis of misinformation.
“I will never withdraw my statement because it is the truth,” he said. Corruption had not ended after his remarks, he added, but had “come out more openly”. He said she should ask her father, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, how to respond when someone points out a problem, and that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had not contacted him about the row.
Security withdrawn, reply ready
Speaking to reporters in Lahore a day earlier, Salik said he had not named Maryam Nawaz in his original remarks. He said the Punjab government had withdrawn the Elite Force security that had accompanied him for about a year and a half, and that his reply to her legal notice was ready and would be made public within days.
Asked whether his elder brother, Chaudhry Shafay Hussain, would resign as Punjab’s minister for industries, commerce, and investment, Salik said his brother had not known about the remarks in advance and that only he could answer that question.
How the row began
The dispute began with a television interview broadcast on November 2 in which Salik, whose party is a federal coalition ally of the PML-N, said there were so many corruption files in Punjab that they could fill entire cupboards. He acknowledged that he had no documentary evidence. He also praised his uncle, former chief minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, and said a disproportionate share of Punjab’s development budget was going to Lahore.
Maryam Nawaz served a legal notice on Salik, the programme’s host, and the channel’s chairman, calling the allegations baseless and defamatory, and later sought Rs5 billion in damages, a retraction, and an unconditional apology. She has asked why he stays in a government he considers corrupt, and linked his remarks to the appointment of the deputy commissioner in Gujrat. Salik rejects that, saying the interview was recorded weeks before the posting.
