How can puppet PM give NRO to anyone: Maryam

LAHORE: PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz Sharif has criticized Prime Minister Imran Khan, accusing him of coming into power through back door by conspiring against democratic forces. She accused him of being incompetent and dancing to the tunes of someone else, ruining the country’s economy.

The incompetent PM has been running around the world with begging bowl in his hands, but he crushed every citizen under huge foreign loans by giving the whole country to the IMF for just six billion dollars, she said while addressing a party gathering on Tuesday outside the PML-N Model Town office, marking the 21st anniversary of the country‘s nuclear tests conducted under her father’s government. Since Imran Khan sneaked into power through match fixing that was why he had to put Nawaz Sharif into jail despite the fact that he made the country a nuclear power, she said, adding that Imran Khan had been running behind one court to the other, fearing that if Nawaz came out of jail, his government would come to an end.

In her fiery speech, Maryam targeted Prime Minister Imran Khan for ‘being a puppet, one who stole votes, and a habitual liar’, accusing him of being unable to contest her father, herself and Hamza Shahbaz, and thus hiding behind the NAB and courts. “Don’t hide behind institutions and come out in the open,” she challenged him. She said the vote stealers have to live under fear and that’s why Imran lacks honour and courage to face people in the eye, since he knows he is not people’s legitimate representative. She said when the party made Maryam Nawaz and Hamza Shahbaz vice presidents, Imran began to tremble.

She said no world leader is ready to talk to Imran Khan because he is known as a ‘selected’ and ‘puppet’ prime minister. “He has been running around the world with begging bowl but none of the world leaders are either ready to help him or come to Pakistan fearing he would ask for money, despite the fact that we are a nuclear power. Indian PM Modi doesn’t take calls from Imran Khan, but the same Modi came here on Nawaz Sharif’s invitation,” she said.

She said: “The nation is celebrating the Yaum-e-Takbeer at a time when we need to ask why despite being a nuclear power, our country is still suffering from instability. Why is our incapable premier still running around with a begging bowl? When Pakistan conducted nuclear tests, Nawaz Sharif did not ask for money from anyone.”

Maryam said Imran Khan has been tagging opponents as corrupt, “but after his so-called honest, ‘Sadiq and Ameen’, government came to power, did he lower electricity or fuel prices? Referring to Imran’s declaration that he would not give NRO to anyone, Maryam said “Who was asking you for NRO? How could one who is subservient to others’ dictates and acting as puppet give NRO to anyone?” she said, adding that “Imran Khan’s entire cabinet was shuffled by his masters and he could do nothing except only to look passively?”

Hamza Shahbaz warned that time was close when the Pakistani nation would hold Imran Khan accountable for his misdeeds of ruining the country’s economy and habitually speaking lies. Addressing the gathering, he said all the lies Imran Khan spoke with the nation were now laid bare. He said Imran made the country a slave to the IMF only for the sake of few billion dollars. He said the elected prime minister who founded the country’s nuclear programme was hanged while the prime minister who made the country’s defence undefeatable by making it a nuclear power has been put in jail. He said Imran would not be allowed to hide behind the NAB, asking why Aleema Khan’s 17 offshore companies escaped NAB eyes, and so did Faisal Wavda’s 13 offshore properties and Khusro Bakhtiar’s businesses. He alleged that billions of rupees of corruption was committed in the Peshawar Metro bus project. He warned that the country would be flooded by a tsunami of price hike after the next fiscal budget.

The ceremony was also addressed by Rana Sanaullah, Pervaiz Rasheed and Sardar Ayaz Sadiq.