May 20 meeting of PML-N

ISLAMABAD: Maryam Nawaz’s first formal presence in a high-level meeting of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on May 20 in the wake of her appointment as its vice president (VP) will kick off her influential official role in the party. In the absence of PML-N President and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif, who is in London for the past some weeks in connection with his treatment, top party leaders get together under former Prime Minister and senior VP Shahid Khakan Abbasi’s chairmanship at the Parliament building to deliberate upon the future course of action including the launch of a protest campaign. They were asked to mull over the situation specifically the grim economic scenario by PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif during his meetings with them in Kot Lakhpat Jail Lahore on Thursday.

“Nobody can deny that Maryam is a political reality and the most potent political voice, a position that she has clinched through her struggle,” senior PML-N leader Senator Pervaiz Rashid told The News when contacted. He confirmed that Maryam would be attending the May 20 PML-N meeting, which would mark her maiden formal presence in a top-level party session.

Pervaiz Rashid said that the PML-N discussion would be held in the light of the instructions of Nawaz Sharif, who asked the party leaders to build up their interactions with other opposition parties at a tough time Pakistan is confronted with.

Talking about Maryam’s status in the PML-N, another party leader told this correspondent that she has earned sway in the party and political arena through protest on streets for months for the PML-N and its stands and her imprisonment on trumped up charges. He said Maryam faced jail with courage and never voiced even a minor complaint about the treatment she was extended.

He said she was the only one who actually knows the precise thinking and mind of the party’s real driving force – Nawaz Sharif – because she had been accompanying him during agitation, in jail and elsewhere. This fact, he said, brings immense influence and clout to Maryam, who was made a VP in the recent massive restructuring of the PML-N in which diehard party leaders were accorded key posts.

According to the party stalwart, who will be attending the Monday meeting, different senior PML-N leaders, who are close to the former prime minister, are aware of Nawaz Sharif’s plans, expressed or unspoken, to various extents unlike Maryam who enjoys the unique position for having complete knowledge about them.

“The fact of the matter is that just one tweet of Maryam is more relevant and momentous than many long-winded statements of different politicians of the government and other parties. The post creates tumult in many places. She has a dominant voice not only in the party but also in the political sphere. In any election, every PML-N contestant regardless of his stature in the party and say among people will naturally request her to address at least one poll rally in his constituency to give a boost to his prospects.”

The Monday meeting’s deliberations apart, the PML-N has been shy of engineering turbulence in streets to dislodge the Imran Khan government as it still wants to give time to the regime. It has been repeatedly called upon by the Jamiate Ulemae Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to launch joint protest. The PML-N’s primary focus has been on putting pressure on the government in the Senate and National Assembly.

Even before his nomination as the SVP, Shahid Khakan Abbasi had been presiding over the meetings of an advisory body, which Nawaz Sharif had formed in December last year with the instructions to run the party with mutual consultations in his absence.

The PML-N’s May 20 session will be mulling over political strategy in the absence of Sharif duo - Nawaz behind the bars and Shahbaz in London. However, Maryam will be a frontline Sharif who will be in attendance in the moot. Since long, she has been very active in party’s decision making process but in an informal manner. She has got a formal role for the first time.

PML-N leaders say unheard of devaluation of Pak rupee against US dollar, crisis in the stock market, overall dismal economic situation and tax amnesty scheme will also dominate the discussions.