LAHORE: Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif Sunday lambasted Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chief Imran Khan and promised to change the nation’s fate with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif at the helm of power for the fourth time.
“Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and the entire PML-N leadership will change the destiny of the nation by putting it on the path of progress and prosperity,” said the prime minister while addressing a cheques distribution ceremony under the PM’s Youth Business and Agriculture Loan Scheme at the Governor House in Lahore.
He said his party would accept the public’s mandate in the upcoming polls, urging the people to make their decisions after looking into certain facts and by juxtaposing the PML-N governments’ performance with what he termed PTI’s four-year saga of destruction.
PM Shehbaz mentioned that Imran-led PTI’s tenure was tainted with huge corruption scams including sugar and wheat scams, sale of Toshakhana gifts, BRapid Transit Peshawar, Malam Jabba, an £190 billion UK agency corruption. “No one could deny these stark facts,” he maintained.
The PML-N-led ruling coalition passed a law in June this year limiting the disqualification of parliamentarians to a maximum of five years, benefiting the PML-N chief, who had been disbarred from running for office for a lifetime.
The party is hoping Nawaz’ return soon as it views that his comeback would provide a boost to the party ahead of the general elections, likely to take place in October-November, as the tenure of the federal government ends in mid-August.
While applauding the statesmanship of Nawaz, his elder brother and a three-time premier, the PM regretted that he was removed from power despite the fact that he ended hours-long load-shedding, brought muti-billions CEPC power and road infrastructure projects during 2015, and provided laptops and loans to youth.
On the other hand, he said, Khan had a PML-N and the opposition phobia, as day in and day out, he was “hell-bent” on putting them in jails in “fake cases”.
The PM told the gathering that Nawaz and his party experienced the worst kind of political vendetta, even though they were sent into exile after ouster from power, but unlike the PTI chief, Nawaz never thought of anything bad to the country.
