Imran, Maryam trade barbs after SC’s ruling in election delay case

ISLAMABAD: In yet another Twitter spat, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) Senior Vice-President Maryam Nawaz and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan accused each other of attacking the judiciary soon after the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case relating to the delay in the upcoming elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Earlier, a three-member bench of the SC rejected the government’s request for the formation of a full court to hear the PTI’s petition against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s verdict postponing elections for the Punjab Assembly till October 8.

Taking to Twitter, the deposed prime minister, who was ousted from office via a no-confidence motion in April last year, launched a fresh salvo against PMLN and said: “As PMLN did in 1997 by storming SC to attack CJ Sajjad Ali Shah hearing a contempt petition against Nawaz Sharif, today PMLN is again threatening SC & CJP because they are petrified of elections.”

He urged the people to be ready to take to the streets, if need be, for the sake of rule of law, Constitution and democracy.

“We will be talking to all those political parties who are prepared to stand up against this conspiracy,” he added.

Khan also appealed to the lawyers community to again take the lead as they did in the 2007 Lawyers Movement to protect “Pakistan’s Constitution and the rule of law”.

Strongly reacting to his tweet, his rival, PMLN’s Maryam Nawaz asked who threw shoes on the “photos of judges” after Khan was given the title of “constitution breaker”. She also asked who parked trucks outside the courts. “The marks that your facilitators have put on themselves will follow them and you,” she added.