Did US change your members’ loyalty, Maryam asks PM

GUJRANWALA: Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) Vice-President Maryam Nawaz Sunday severely criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan saying "he is a coward" and that the opposition would "not let him run away”.

She was addressing a press conference, and the party workers, along with the Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz, in Gujranwala, before departing for Islamabad.

Referring to the prime minister’s speech he delivered in Islamabad at Parade Ground on Sunday, she asked Imran Khan if the US had turned his members [of National Assembly] dissidents? "Your own party members do not trust you, which has resulted in the no-confidence motion," Maryam told the premier. "Your party has broken up and your companions, who used to run your kitchen, have lost trust in you," she added.

She said Imran Khan cried but didn't disclose any secret. Maryam said if the premier believes Nawaz Sharif is hatching conspiracies against him all the time and is controlling all the affairs of Pakistan while living in London, then he should be "ashamed of his [governance skills]”. She said that he [Imran] used to be a big bowler, but Nawaz Sharif took his two dozen wickets. “Now Imran can’t find a space to hide,” she said.

"If you think Nawaz is in the driving seat, you should resign and go home," she said adding that this country, its people and its institutions all belong to Nawaz Sharif, and the PMLN supremo is good for everyone.

The PMLN vice president said that people of Pakistan have completely rejected the negative politics of Imran Khan. She said on Imran Khan’s call for bringing one million people, only some thousands attended it at Parade Ground Islamabad, and people of Pakistan not only rejected his government but also ended his politics in the country.

She said the biggest rat of the country was Imran Khan, who had eaten up flour, sugar, ghee and jobs of the people of Pakistan. Maryam said “if you want to hear how ‘Absolutely not’ is uttered, then recall the day when Nawaz Sharif had detonated six nuclear bombs in response to India's five blasts, by rejecting an offer of five billion dollars”.

Addressing Imran Khan, Maryam said, “you spent 12 billion rupees of the nation to find evidence against Nawaz Sharif, but the whole world said that Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif are honest and trustworthy”.

Maryam said Imran Khan would be held accountable for using taxpayers’ money for holding of public gatherings and criticised him for capitalising on the religious card to gain political mileage.

"This money is not your family's money. This is the hard-earned money of the people of Pakistan, which you splurged on holding public rallies," she said while lashing out at the premier. Maryam added that the premier "deprived people of food, while inflation reached the highest levels in the country”.

She also censured him for abusing the opposition leaders and delaying the voting on the no-trust motion, adding that when the premier was held accountable for his wrongdoings related to the foreign funding case, he used “every means to save himself”.

Taking a jibe at PTI's public meeting, Maryam said: "Your jalsa is titled Amr-bil-Maroof (enjoining good). Is snatching bread, flour, electricity, and sugar from masses called Amr-bil-Maroof?"

"Is misbehaving with people [opposition leaders] and calling them names Amr-bil-Maroof?" she questioned. Maryam also called the premier out for referring to Maulana Fazlur Rehman as ‘diesel’ repeatedly and said: "Considering the rising pieces of diesel during Imran Khan's tenure, he should, indeed, be labelled as diesel instead."

The PMLN vice-president, while talking about the decision of the National Assembly's speaker to delay the no-confidence motion session, said that Imran Khan is "violating the Constitution through the speaker”.

Favouring her uncle and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif, Maryam said he is "a thousand times better than Imran Khan". "How can you compare yourself with Shehbaz? When there were floods in Pakistan, he used to visit places while submerged knee-deep in the stagnant water," she said.

For his part, Hamza Shehbaz said that PM Imran Khan's "rhetoric of Naya Pakistan was nothing but a spectacle”. The PMLN leader said his party "does not believe in the umpire but believes in the people of Pakistan”. He claimed that when the 2018 elections were "stolen”, the PMLN was the biggest party in Punjab at the time.

"I have been receiving reports related to dissolution of the Punjab Assembly already," Hamza said. "This clearly indicates that 'aapki ki kaanpain taang rahi hain (the government's legs are trembling)'".