Photo courtesy PID
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday reiterated allegations of former chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Saqib Nisar being the main architect of the disqualification of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Nawaz Sharif ahead of the 2018 general elections.
“Former chief justice Saqib Nisar was the ringleader of the gang of conspirators. He, in connivance with others, got Nawaz Sharif disqualified,” he told a gathering near Faisalabad after inaugurating the construction of a link road to Motorway-III. In recent months, several PMLN leaders have been accusing the former CJP of playing a key role in disqualifying Nawaz to “make room” for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, who went on to win the 2018 general elections.
Sharif said his elder brother had been disqualified over “baseless” allegations, noting there were 400 other names in the Panama Papers who had faced no legal action. Referring to the upcoming general elections, he said if the PMLN were voted into power, Nawaz Sharif would be the party’s candidate for prime minister, while he would serve as a “worker” under the former prime minister.
Vowing that the PMLN would “change the fate of Pakistan” if it were granted a five-year mandate, he stressed that even if it lost in the polls, it would respect the people’s mandate. However, he called on the people to “take revenge” for the 2018 elections by defeating those who had come to power through rigging. Emphasizing that the PMLN had sacrificed its political capital for the national interest and tried its best to steer the country out of the crises the ousted PTI-led government had pushed onto it, he lamented that former prime minister Imran Khan’s only focus had been empty rhetoric rather than performance.
“What did the former government do in the last four years? That person [Imran Khan] signed a deal with the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and then violated it,” he said, adding that Pakistan’s issues would not be solved by “witchcraft,” but by hard work and honesty.
On the state of the economy, the prime minister claimed the threat of default had now been averted, and vowed that Pakistan would compete with India economically within the next 10 years. On the recently announced hike in the electricity tariff, he said it was not applicable on “lifeline” consumers utilizing up to 200 units/month. He also stressed that this step was necessary for the revival of the IMF deal.