ISLAMABAD: Expre­ssing his concerns over the trend of leaked audios and videos of politicians that have begun to surface on and off, PML-Q president and veteran politician Cha­udhry Shujaat Hussain on Saturday advised PTI chairman Imran Khan to “spill the beans about those pushing him against the wall”.

Talking to reporters after meeting with Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Barrister Sultan Mehmood, Mr Shujaat said: “Presently, our politics is facing a strange situation. Every day, videos are being played.”

“How will the outside world view our politics?” asked the PML-Q chief in an apparent reference to the recently-leaked audio conversations of former first lady Bushra Bibi and former president Asif Ali Zardari.

When asked to comment on the statement of former prime minister Imran Khan, where he had threatened to spill the beans if pushed to the wall, Shujaat asked Mr Khan to first reveal who was putting pressure on him.

Mr Shujaat also dismissed reports of rifts within the PML-Q, adding that he had no differences with Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervez Elahi. “Have we ever made any statement against each other?” he questioned when asked about possibility of rifts within the Q-League.

The PML-Q chief, however, admitted that there were some “ideological differences” with Mr Elahi, but he downplayed the severity of those differences. adding that such matters could even crop up between a father and his son, and there was no harm in it.

Elders must listen to the viewpoint of the younger generation and political rivalry should not be allowed to become a personal rivalry, he said, in an apparent reference to Mr Elahi’s son, Moonis, who is believed to have pushed his father firmly into the PTI’s camp even as Shujaat lent his support to the PML-N-led coalition government.

The elder Chaudhry also called for free and fair by polls on July 17, while adding that Punjab’s political situation would become clearer after the election.

He also termed national security institutions the “guarantors of Pakistan’s stability”, ostensibly in response to Mr Khan’s incessant criticism on the role of the establishment in his government’s ouster.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2022