Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed has claimed that a Gulf country funded former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s election campaign in the 1990s.
In an interview with Samaa, the minister said that he was a minister in the cabinet of Nawaz Sharif at the time. Rasheed said he was accompanying Nawaz Sharif when it was revealed that the country, that is rich in oil and gas and also has an LNG deal with Pakistan, funded the former PM’s party as a “token of love”.
According to the minister, the Arab country leader asked Nawaz: “Mr Prime Minister, we have given you a token of love on your election expenditure. Did you receive it?”
At this, Nawaz responded that yes, he had received the money, said Rasheed, adding that he asked Nawaz to send them a ‘thank you note’ at least.
It may be noted here that PM Imran Khan had alleged that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) received funds from foreign countries. The comments by the PM came in the wake of the hearings of a foreign funding case against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
Last week, the PTI had said that its agents managing two limited liability companies (LLCs) in the US could be responsible for any illegal funding and PTI Chairman Imran Khan had nothing to do with it.
In a response to the petition in the foreign funding case, the PTI, that had denied any links to the foreign funding, said that if the two LLC registered after the written instructions of party chief Imran Khan were involved in the illegal act, it would be due to its agents who were managing them in the US.
The case was filed by PTI founding member Akbar S Babar in 2014. The Election Commission of Pakistan had started fresh scrutiny of the PTI accounts — a process going on since March 2018.
