HARIPUR: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has said that his party will come to power again after this year’s general elections and then revive its development agenda with the addition of a housing scheme for homeless people across the country.

Speaking at a public meeting here on Saturday, he said he was pursuing his development agenda for prosperity and well-being of people, reducing distance between cities by building motorways, creating job opportunities for youths through industrialisation and bringing an end to energy crisis. But five judges ousted him from Prime Minister House, he regretted.

He said since housing was the biggest problem for salaried and low-income people of the country, he had a plan to provide houses on easy instalments of five to 10 years to homeless people.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader responded in the affirmative to the audience’s demand for creation of Hazara province once his party formed next government after the coming elections.

Promises housing scheme for homeless people

Criticising his disqualification by the Supreme Court, he said the coming elections would be a referendum on the decision of five judges who “disqualified him on the basis of an Iqama not Panama (Papers) by ignoring the sanctity of votes of 150 million Pakistanis who had elected his party to power”.

Mr Sharif asked the participants of the rally whether they supported the court decision against him and the audience answered with a resounding “no”. He claimed that his party’s landslide victory in the next elections would be a verdict from the court of voters that would force the judges to reverse their decision.

He described six-lane motorways, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and end of loadshedding and spectre of terrorism from the country as major achievements of his government.

“If you vote my party to power again you will see every city of the country connected with a motorway”, Mr Sharif said, adding that he had the record of keeping the promises he made with people.

Lambasting the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief, he said Imran Khan indulged in politics of using abusive language and levelling baseless allegations against his opponents.

About the court decision in Mr Khan’s case, Mr Sharif said he would not allow double standard in dispensation of justice as justice should be same for everyone.

Talking about the PTI slogan of change, he said the party’s government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had failed to honour its own promise of generating electricity and planting two billion trees. On the other hand, he added, the PML-N’s federal government had built a motorway in Hazara and undertaken a number of mega projects for the KP.

About the joint opposition’s Lahore rally, Mr Sharif said the people of Lahore had shown the opposition leaders their real worth by keeping the chairs empty.

He said those leaders who had been calling each other thieves in the past had gathered on a stage in Lahore to pursue a single point agenda of opposing Nawaz Sharif but their show had badly flopped. He claimed that the opposition leaders would face similar response from voters in the coming elections.

Earlier Maryam Nawaz, addressing the audience both in Hindko and Urdu, said sensing his party’s defeat in the next elections, Mr Khan had started cursing parliament which was a direct insult of voters as parliament belonged to them.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2018