LAHORE: Pakistan Peoples Party's Central Punjab President Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo on Monday said the federal government was using the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for revenge purposes, adding that the country would only progress with the elimination of corruption.

Addressing a press conference in Lahore's Model Town area, the senior PPP leader said the federal government was using institutions such as the NAB for its own designs and as weapons against its political opponents.

He said the cases underway against former president Asif Ali Zardari were simply a means of exacting political retribution against the PPP leader.

Wattoo said the former president would be acquitted "in all these cases" and added that "agencies and the establishment" engineer the PPP's defeat in elections by well-thought out strategies.

The senior leader also said that the Punjab government was employing measures to rig the province's local government elections.

Wattoo further said that the PPP would not allow the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz-led administration at the centre to sell government-run institutions for peanuts.