Country going through ‘historical poverty’ due to PM’s ‘incompetence’, asserts Shehbaz

SWAT: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday heavily criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan and said that the country was going through “historical poverty” due to the mistakes of the incumbent government.

Addressing a rally of the Pakistan Democratic Movement at the Grassy Ground in Mingora, Swat, Shehbaz said that PM Imran left “no stone unturned in destroying the people of Pakistan”.

He asserted that the inflation in the country has skyrocketed, while the premier has failed to live up to the various promises he made. He alleged that no bricks had been laid for the five million houses the PM promised. Similarly, he remarked that “Imran Khan said he would create 10 million jobs but instead left people unemployed”.

Shahbaz continued to criticise the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government for increasing the prices of wheat, petrol, and electricity and said that “Imran Khan has brought the country to the brink of disaster.”

“Imran Khan had said that he would end corruption from the country within 90 days of coming into power, but nothing happened,” said Shahbaz. “The seat of the premier remains empty in the Parliament, just like the pockets of the masses.”

“This is certainly not the Pakistan that the Quaid-e-Azam had envisioned,” said Shehbaz.

The PML-N leader also lauded the previous, PML-N-led government and cited comparative statistics, adding that the “old Pakistan” was much better than the “Naya Pakistan.”

Shehbaz also assured the crowd that the PDM is still united.

Moreover, PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman in his address said that despite the prevailing conditions, the people of Pakistan are still passionate about the rule of law in the country.

“People’s hopes and spirits have still not diminished. While Imran Khan represents the undemocratic part of Pakistani politics, the PDM will ensure that this illegitimate government is sent packing,” he said.

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry earlier in the day lashed out at the PDM leadership, saying that the opposition alliance was staging another drama in Swat today after the failure of the Abu Bachao Movement.

Chaudhry has used the above-mentioned slogan to describe, what he calls, the opposition parties’ efforts to seek relief for ex-president Asif Ali Zardari and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, from accountability.

The minister said that the “characters in this drama” have split already, adding that neither do the parties in the PDM share an ideology nor are they on a shared path or moving towards a common destination.

“Criticising Imran Khan is not sufficient alone. Show the public the programme you have for them,” he added.

Separately, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan has termed the public gathering of PDM in Swat as a complete flopped show and said that deaf ear to PDM call clearly reflects their confidence in the policies of the incumbent government.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the Chief Minister said that the worst political opponents of the past who always blamed each other for plundering the resources of the country have now united just to save themselves from ruthless accountability being carried by the incumbent government.

He added that lack of public participation in the public meeting was a clear message for PDM that not only Swat, rather the people across the province have out-rightly rejected unjustified movement against the government.

Mahmood Khan stated that like the first phase, the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa once again rejected the anti-government movement of PDM. He said that the opposition alliance has already met its fate much earlier when two of its major component parties parted their ways from it.

The CM said that PDM was an alliance of failed, rejected, and corrupt politicians, who were trying to malign the government to avoid ruthless accountability.

However, he made it clear that the across-the-board accountability would continue as it was on top of the agenda of the PTI government and the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan. He said anyone who had plundered national resources would be taken to task.

Mahmood Khan further said that people of the province, as well as the whole country, had rejected the opposition parties as they had ruled the country turn by turn for about seven decades, but did nothing for the well-being of the masses.

Therefore, the people reposed full confidence in Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf in the last general election and will do the same in the next general elections too, he added.

He stressed that PTI and Prime Minister Imran Khan were the only rays of hope for the nation for having full capability to steer the country out of crisis and make it a great nation.

The CM condemned the organizers of the PDM’s public meeting for using the minor students of Mardassas for their political show after lack of participation by the public and termed it as a shameful act on their part.

It is pertinent here to mention that while the current leadership of the alliance maintains the unity of the anti-government coalition, the PDM did face hurdles and rumours of a split after the Senate elections, wherein the Pakistan People’s Party Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the party’s Central Executive Committee had called upon its members to resign from all positions of the PDM.

He had said at the time that the CEC had come to the conclusion that resignations from the national and provincial assemblies should be “like an atom bomb”.

Bilawal said the PPP’s stance that the Opposition should not “abandon the Parliament and the Senate battleground” had been vindicated.

Flanked by party leaders, Bilawal held a news conference to speak about the matters that came under discussion during the PPP’s CEC.

Furthermore, Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in May maintained that his party was not changing its stance, stressing the fact that they are not answerable to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s top leaders.

The above was sain in response to a question from a reporter during a presser in Badin. The question was on Maryam’s recent comments that the PPP had not responded to the show cause notice sent to it and had shown her support to comments by Pakistan Democratic Movement Secretary-General Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

Abbasi had said on the Tuesday prior to this presser that there was no place for the PPP within the opposition alliance until it restored the trust it had betrayed. He said that the PDM had sought a response from the PPP, which Bilawal had torn into pieces. “We had asked for a response. Join together the torn pieces [of the show-cause notice], read it and give us the clarification we had sought,” Abbasi had said.

During the press conference, the PPP chairman acknowledged that he had torn the show cause notice and there was no change in his stance on the PDM. “We are not answerable to Maryam or Mian Sahab. We are answerable to the PPP and the PPP’s workers and we think the real joy will be in doing politics together with the PPP’s workers.”

He called on those who wanted democracy to flourish, civilian supremacy and actually wanted to oppose Prime Minister Imran Khan to “instead of opposing the PPP, our friends in the opposition should target the government.”

Bilawal also took a jibe at the PML-N, who had formed a government in the year 1991, and said that the “selected” government of that time had imposed an “illegal water accord” on the Sindh government.

“[Unlike the past] we will not tolerate anyone stealing water from Sindh,” he said.