Nawaz ended darkness in country: Shahbaz

DERA GHAZI KHAN/LAHORE: PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif has said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had pressurised their candidates and were forced to quit the party. Criticising PTI chief Imran Khan, Shahbaz said the majority of the corrupt class was currently part of “Dhookey Khan’s party”.

He said it was former prime minister Nawaz Sharif who had overcome power crisis and ended darkness in the country, but even medicines were not provided to him despite being a cardiac patient.

Shahbaz, who addressed rallies at University Ground in the city and at Basti Talpur near Choti Zairin on the last of election campaign, said Nawaz and his daughter Maryam Nawaz were forced to sleep on floor on the first night they had spent in Adiala jail.

He asked the crowd whether they would honour the sacrifices of Nawaz who left his ailing wife to raise the voice of the masses for their rights, to which the people responded in yes. Shahbaz said the PML-N would win the July 25 general elections and form governments at Center and Punjab despite all the discriminatory actions and injustices.

He said the PML-N’s Punjab government had established Daanish schools and cadet colleges in Dera Ghazi Khan and a medical college in Rajanpur. He would transform Dera Ghazi Khan on the pattern of Lahore, if the people gave him another chance.

Shahbaz said he would rebel and uproot the existing corrupt system where justice was not provided to the poor who faced unjust policing system, while the poor were getting poorer and the rich richer.

He asked the charged crowd to place and shut the lotas (party defectors) for southern Punjab in the washrooms. The PML-N president, showing a letter to the crowd, said the former Chinese ambassador had sent him a letter in which he acknowledged his services for strengthening Sino-Pak relations and completing the CPEC projects. “It’s is not a fake letter like Imran Khan’s,” he remarked.

On the occasion, he praised Sardar Awais Leghari, Sardar Jamal Leghari, Qadir Leghari and Syed Abdul Aleem Shah for their role and standing by the party in hard times. Earlier in the day, Shahbaz pleaded to the caretaker government to shift Nawaz to a hospital in line with the medical board's report.

“I appeal once again to the caretaker government to shift Nawaz to a hospital based on the medical board’s report,” Shahbaz said, adding that he had serious concerns regarding Nawaz's health worsening in jail.

The former Punjab chief minister added, “It is the jail administration’s responsibility to provide basic medical facilities to Nawaz.” The PML-N president upheld that jail authorities deprived Nawaz of basic facilities despite repeated requests.

Shahbaz also questioned, “Why I or anyone in my family had been informed that Nawaz wasn’t feeling well?” Recalling that he had requested the caretaker premier and Punjab chief minister to provide a personal physician to Nawaz, the PML-N president lamented that they had ignored his appeal. “Nawaz suffers from acute heart pain,” he added.