Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif has said that the ‘selected’ government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has destroyed the country in just three years and made millions of people jobless.
“The burgeoning inflation level in the country now demands widespread public demonstrations and I urge everyone to take to the streets against this menace,” he said while addressing party workers during a workers convention in Rawalpindi.
On the occasion, Shehbaz Sharif also congratulated PML-N leaders over victory in cantonment board elections and said the election results were very satisfactory.
Shehbaz claimed his party would have fulfilled all its promises listed in the 2018 election manifesto had it been in power.
“Get ready, it’s time to launch a movement against the government, defeat it politically and make Pakistan great,” he said while giving a clarion call to workers.
Lashing out at the government over rising inflation, he lamented that the prices of basic commodities were skyrocketing and “the prime minister is still asking people not to worry”.
He also said that his party will bury PTI politically in the next general elections while stressing upon national institutions to ensure “fair and transparent” polls in 2023.
“It’s our right that the 2023 elections be held in a transparent manner and institutions like the Supreme Court and the Election Commission of Pakistan ensure polls are held fairly,” he told a workers’ convention in Rawalpindi.
He also highlighted that the recent cantonment board elections were transparent, saying “nobody intervened in those polls”.
On the other hand, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib on Sunday asked PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif to bring back his absconding elder brother Nawaz Sharif from London instead of criticizing the government.
“You are a guarantor of your brother and you helped him flee the country to reach London, so bring him back before criticizing the government,” said the minister in a news statement while reacting to Shehbaz Sharif’s anti-government remarks.
He said Shehbaz Sharif had no right to celebrate his party’s victory in the cantonment boards’ elections as the PML-N was completely wiped out from three provinces including Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh due to its poor performance.
The PML-N had been relegated to a region, he said while referring to the political presence of the party’s in Punjab.
It was the PTI who took lead in the cantonment boards’ elections, he said, and asked Shehbaz to show some moral courage and accept his party’s defeat in the election.
The minister said it had become a habit of the PML-N to single out rigging wherever they faced defeat and termed those elections transparent where they emerged victoriously.
He said all the elections held in the past under traditional way were marred by the rigging controversy; therefore, the use of Electronic Voting Machines was crucial to ensure free, fair, and transparent polls in the country.
Describing the EVMs as ‘guarantors’ of the transparent elections, he said the opposition had every right to do politics, but they should help the government reform the system by setting aside their personal interests.
He said those who dream to defeat the PTI in the last general election would face a humiliating defeat in the next polls.
Those, who remained in the power in turn-by-turn, had looted the country ‘ruthlessly’, he said adding, they also went to the International Monetary Fund for the first time to borrow money.
with additional input from APP
