SIALKOT: Federal Minister for Defence, Water and Power Khawaja Asif Saturday said the time had come for the nation to see a “Roshan Pakistan” as the government put the country on way to progress and prosperity.

Addressing a PML N workers convention here at Gohadpur, the minister said Pakistan would continue its journey towards socio-economic and human development despite hurdles being created by political opponents. The country was rapidly attaining economic and political stability, he added.

The minister said the people had become politically mature as they had already rejected negative politics of certain elements, who were trying to impede the country’s march towards development. He said the development process was launched across the country.

Khawaja Asif said the people would again reject certain political elements in 2018 general election for doing negative politics and vote the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz to power to its marvelous performance in every sphere of life, in addition to fulfilling all the promises made in its manifesto.

He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was the only prime minister of the country who had presented himself and his family members for accountability.

The minister said the government was committed to end terrorism at all costs. It had already uprooted terrorists from their sanctuaries and eliminated them with the help of whole nation and now the country moving fast ahead towards the goal of peace, prosperity and economic stability.

“We have broken the nexus of terrorists, militants and insurgents in the country,” he added.

He saluted the armed forces of Pakistan, other law enforcing agencies and the nation for fighting against terrorism. The people stood united behind the armed forces and were even sacrificing their lives in the fight against terrorism, he added.

Khawaja Asif stressed the need of an effective role by the media in the fight against terrorism. It was a national obligation that all should play their due role to help end terrorism, militancy and insurgency from the country.

He said 2017 would be the last year of load shedding as there would be no load shedding in 2018.

Addressing the convention, Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique said the government was pursuing a country wide development programme.

He said Pakistan was making development in every sphere of life as the PML-N government was successfully fulfilling its all commitments and pledges made to the people before coming to power.He said it was strengthening all the national institutions.

He said the ‘container people’ were protesting for nothing. “We have been bringing happiness for the people under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s vision of national development and prosperity.” But they (opponents) were creating hurdles, he added.

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) wanted to trample democratic norms and values in the country.

Its chief (Imran Khan) had always preferred dictatorship than struggling for democracy as evident from his support for Pervaiz Musharraf.

Saad Rafique said the PTI had failed to submit any supportive documents to prove their allegations in the Panama Papers case being heard by the Supreme Court.n