Govt will be gone before January, claims Maryam Nawaz

ISLAMABAD: A confident PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz Monday said the PTI government would go home before January, a few days before the opposition holds its first power show in a campaign aimed at ousting the government.

Maryam lashed out at the government, saying that the PML-N had not been subjected to such atrocities even during the government of General Musharraf when former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was in exile.

"I don't even recognize this government. This government does not deserve to be called a government," she said in an interview, local media reported. Maryam said the incumbent government was neither constitutional in spirit nor did it have any legal basis.

Referring to Prime Minister Imran Khan as a "handpicked" person, Maryam said he did not care about the people. "The handpicked one is only concerned with himself and always wants to silence his opponents," she said.

"The handpicked one does not concern himself with the masses." She said the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) was the need of the hour and had been established after public pressure against the measures of those in power.

Reiterating her stance that there was no division in the PML-N, Maryam said party President Shahbaz Sharif "had a different approach" and that had been the case since a while. "Shahbaz Sharif is like father to me; I do not see him any different from my father. There is no rift in the PML-N; the entire party stands behind Nawaz Sharif," she said.

Maryam said over the years several people talked about a split in the party but Sharif brothers remained united and Shahbaz always stood by his brother. "Shahbaz went to jail because he did not leave his brother alone," she said.

"The Sharifs have always been on one page and will continue to remain so. Those who have tried to cause a rift between the Sharif brothers have always failed." Maryam said she had no differences with her uncle Shahbaz, adding that he had his own way to deal with issues.

The PML-N vice president rejected allegations that her father Nawaz Sharif, was a traitor. She said the questions he was asking needed to be answered. "Mian sahib’s narrative is exactly the same as Quaid-e-Azam's," she said. "The questions that Mian sahab has asked does not amount to treason."

She said her father was not against the national institutions but transgression. Talking about Nawaz's health, Maryam said her father would return to the country after his heart surgery and if his doctors allowed him to.

"Nawaz could not have been treated in any hospital in Pakistan," she said. Sharing her thoughts on the FIR registered against the PML-N leadership, she criticized the move to include Azad Kashmir Prime Minister Farooq Haider in it.