PPP Co-Chairperson Asif Ali Zardari said on Wednesday that neither was he in touch with ousted premier Nawaz Sharif, nor did he want to be as the former PM’s priorities were different while in power and when he was not.

At a meeting with senior party leaders in Lahore, the former president of Pakistan said the PPP would not be part of any grand national dialogue that Sharif had called for following his disqualification by the top court.

“Why doesn’t Nawaz Sharif remember Articles 62, 63, grand national dialogues and agreements when he’s in power,” he remarked.

The PPP co-chairman said there was not threat to democracy in the country. “The only threat is to Nawaz Sharif’s own political career,” he added.

Zardari maintained that the PPP’s recent successful rally in Chiniot was evidence of the party’s growing popularity in Punjab.

“Bilawal [PPP chairman] is now in the political field and he is making the PPP stronger in Punjab.”

On August 14, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had announced that his party would not support the PML-N government’s bid to amend the Constitution in the wake of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution.

The apex court’s five-judge bench disqualified Nawaz Sharif as he had not mentioned his assets in his nomination papers for 2013 polls, which it considered proof that he was not ‘sadiq’ (truthful) and ‘ameen’ (trustworthy) as required by the two articles.