PML-N trying to ensure historic welcome for Maryam Nawaz

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Sindh leaders have intensified their efforts to ensure a warm welcome for Maryam Nawaz, the party’s central leader, in her first political appearance in Karachi to attend the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM) rally on Sunday, October 18.

After the October 1999 coup when General Pervez Musharraf took over the reins of the country and imprisoned both the Sharif brothers in the Landhi prison, Maryam Nawaz with her mother Kulsoom Nawaz regularly visited Karachi to meet Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif.

At that time, their visits were not political and they mainly stayed at the residence of Majid Sultan Khwaja, a family friend of the Sharifs and former senator, in an affluent neighbourhood of the city.

However, as the political career of Maryam had risen after Nawaz’s physical absence from the political arena, the PDM rally on Sunday will be her first public appearance in Karachi, the country’s largest city where the PML-N enjoys a significant support base.

Maryam, the vice president of the PML-N, who is also now being seen by many as the heir to her father’s political legacy, is currently spearheading the party after the detention of the party’s president and her uncle, Shahbaz.

She would speak to a PDM rally in Gujranwala on Friday and on Sunday, she would arrive in Karachi to address the rally of the opposition parties’ alliance in the city. The PML-N Sindh has formed several committees to make arrangements for a tumultuous welcome to be accorded to Maryam.

In this regard, a meeting held on Tuesday at the Muslim League House, the party’s provincial secretariat in Karachi headed by Sindh president Shah Muhammad Shah, to devise a strategy to accord a warm welcome to Maryam on her arrival at the Karachi airport and make the party’s presence in the PDM rally visible.

Several committees have been formed that would be responsible for motivating workers, making arrangements for their transportation to the airport to welcome her, and to the rally venue near the Mazar-e-Quaid.

Khwaja Tariq Nazeer, a PML-N Sindh leader, said the supporters and workers of the party in Sindh, particularly Karachi, were emotional to welcome Maryam in the metropolis and had intensified their efforts to make arrangements for according a befitting welcome to the daughter of the party’s supreme leader.

“A major welcoming camp will be set up at the Karachi airport while other camps will be established across the city,” he said.

He added that her speech at the PDM rally on Sunday would not only serve to boost the opposition parties’ confidence in their campaign against the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) but also help strengthen the party in Karachi.