Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday castigated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan for "aiming to seek power even if it means undermining the country's foundations", local media reported.
The PTI and the coalition government are at loggerheads as the former presses on holding early elections. However, the ruling alliance has ruled out snap polls and vowed to not come under Khan's pressure, Geo News reported.
"Imran's recent diatribe against parliamentary democracy is the latest in a series of attacks that fly in the face of how democracy functions in modern nation-states," Sharif said in a tweet. As the PTI chief speaks against state institutions and hurls abuses against the ruling alliance leaders, Sharif believes that his politics' sole aim was coming back to power through any means.
"His (Khan's) politics is aimed at making his way to power even if it means undermining foundations this country stands on," the Prime Minister said, Geo News reported. The PM's statement came after the PTI chief shared his willingness to halt the dissolution of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies if the coalition government agrees to conduct elections by the end of March next year -- another announcement to pressurise the coalition alliance.
In an interview with a private news channel, Khan said: "If they are ready for elections by the end of March, then we won't dissolve the assemblies. Otherwise, we want to conduct polls by dissolving the KP and Punjab assemblies."
"How long will they take to decide? They either have to say yes or no. We have already decided," the former premier said underlining his conditional stance on talks with the government on the election date. Do they want polls to take place in 66% of the country and then conduct general elections," Khan questioned, suggesting they announce the election date soon, Geo News reported.