Not easy to bring Pakistan back on track: Nawaz

MANSEHRA: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PMLN) supreme leader Nawaz Sharif Monday lamented that it would not be an easy task to bring Pakistan back on track.

Addressing an election rally in Mansehra, from where the three-time prime minister is contesting on NA-15, Nawaz said that Pakistan has fallen behind in the world and that the country has to be “rebuilt”.

He asked the people to vote for his party to resume the journey of development and put the country on the path to progress. He said those who ruled the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for two consecutive terms shattered the country’s economy.

“I am glad to be among you for the first time since 2013. This decade-long separation is nothing less than painful agony for me,” he remarked. The PMLN leader said it was painful to see the country facing enormous challenges on various fronts.

The gathering, where people largely showed up from across Mansehra district, cheered the PMLN supremo throughout his speech. “Had the five judges of the apex court not expelled me from the prime minister’s office, I would have made this country’s economy vibrant. I had left the US dollar at Rs104,” he recalled.

The former prime minister enumerated the mega development projects launched by him in Hazara and the rest of the country, saying Hazara Motorway facilitated the commuters as now they could reach the federal capital in less than two hours.

“Today, I am here not to become the prime minister. Instead I am here to contest elections from NA-15 and seek your votes. Cast your vote for prosperity and development of this country and your province as nothing has changed here,” Nawaz Sharif said.

Without naming Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founding chairman Imran Khan, he said the country’s economy was shattered when a liar fraudulently assumed the prime minister’s office. “I ask the people of KP, what did they [PTI] do during their 10-year rule,” the PML-N supremo said while taking a jibe at the party that ruled the province from 2013 till January 2023.

“These people have ruined this province,” he added. “I was in jail and then in London when this country was plundered. We could have completed the Lahore-Karachi Motorway and you could have flown from a modern airport from here to the rest of the country and abroad,” he said.

The politico, if voted into power, his government would see that Mansehra gets its own airport and that universities and colleges are set up in the area. He sought people’s support in overhauling the economy of the country so that he could put it on the way to prosperity, saying if he came to power, he would link the Hazara Motorway with Gilgit-Baltistan via Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad road.

“If I come to power, no youngster will remain unemployed, and poor segments of the society will be provided electricity, natural gas and even vegetables on a subsidised price,” Nawaz Sharif said.

The PMLN leader said that Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had visited him at Prime Minister’s House after the 2013 general elections and had sought his support to install a coalition government in KP instead of giving a chance to the PTI but he didn’t accept his offer.

Maryam Nawaz also addressed the gathering and said she was glad to see that a huge crowd had shown up to welcome Nawaz Sharif despite a shivering cold.

“This is a revenge for the PTI founding chairman and his party as they used to harass me and other women in public gatherings and through social media,” she said, adding that this was not part of the culture as the people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa respected the women.

She said the PTI failed to launch any mega development projects such as Motorway, Orange Line, Green Lines any, state-of-the-art health facilities and Daanish Schools during its 10 years rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

PMLN leaders including Sardar Mohammad Yusuf, Amir Muqam and Mohammad Safdar were also present as well on the occasion. Meanwhile addressing a rally in Lahore, Maryam Nawaz said that by excluding Nawaz Sharif from Pakistan there would be nothing but ruins. The PMLN leader added that country’s future was linked with Nawaz.