PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Saturday said Prime Minister Imran Khan is surrounded by “thieves”.
“He has flour thieves in front of him, power thieves behind him, gas thieves on the right, sugar thieves on the left and ATMs below,” Maryam said, while addressing a PML-N campaign rally for by-elections in the NA-75 constituency in Sialkot’s Daska tehsil.
Maryam said that even if PML-N fails to secure a single seat in Senate, “the PML-N and Nawaz Sharif will never sit down with this lying, incompetent Imran Khan”.
“This is not an election, it is a war, a war which Nawaz Sharif has begun against those who stole your votes,” she said.
The PML-N vice president, throughout her speech, made a case against the incumbent government — as PTI’s Usman Dar is also contesting the seat — and sought to “remind” people of the PML-N’s “services” in Punjab.
In severe criticism of the government and in particular Prime Minister Imran Khan, she said that when people complain of inflation “he says reduce your expenses”.
“Tell me, which of you were given a job of the 10 million jobs promised by the prime minister?” she asked the rally participants, adding: “Has not Punjab been abandoned?”
She claimed that today a “tearful Punjab cries for (former prime minister) Nawaz Sharif and (former Punjab chief minister) Shahbaz Sharif”.
Maryam said that he who promised 10 million jobs and five million houses has now “scaled back to chickens, eggs and calves”.
“Forget jobs and houses, did any of you get these chickens, eggs or calves?” she asked, adding: “For shame!”
She sought to “remind” everyone that Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, had set up power plants.
The PML-N leader said that the PTI government, on the other hand, “did not succeed in making a Metro bus even”. “They only made potholes in the middle of roads,” she said.
Maryam, in further criticism of the Metro bus project said that the project took six years to complete and even then the buses “go up in flames more than they run”.
“The ones that do not catch fire, have to be pushed to start,” she added.
By-polls in NA-75 after seat falls vacant
The NA-75 seat fell vacant when PML-N MNA Syed Iftikharul Hassan Shah died of coronavirus on August 2. By-polls for the seat , along with provincial assembly seat PP-51, will be held on February 19.
According to a Dawn report, PPP candidates Qamar Zaman Kaira and Sumera Sahi withdrew their candidature to support the PML-N on both these seats.
“For both the by-polls, the PML-N has chosen family members of the deceased lawmakers who held the seats previously. Nosheen Iftikhar — the daughter of former MNA Zahry Shah — and Talat Cheema — the widow of former MPA Shaukat Cheema — have been given the party tickets for NA-75 and PP-51, respectively,” read the report.
PM’s aide resigns to stand for elections
News broke a day earlier that PTI leader Usman Dar has stepped down as special assistant to the prime minister on youth affairs.
Dar will contest the election from the city’s NA-75 area and will, according to sources, resume his official duty as the prime minister’s special assistant after the election.
