LAHORE: Pressure from within the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has been mounting on the party leadership to join hands with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to take to the streets against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government’s ‘aggressive’ use of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against them.

The PML-N leaders Dawn spoke to on Sunday believed that the PTI government would push it (PML-N) further to the wall if they kept watching silently the “PTI-NAB nexus” operate with impunity.

They said some party leaders had started ‘requesting’ the leadership, Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif, to start mobilising workers to launch a campaign against the government. As the masses were overburdened by unprecedented price hike and inflation due to the PTI government policies, it was the right time to take to the streets, they said, expressing the hope that the opposition’s drive would be ‘very successful’.

PML-N information secretary Senator Mushahidullah Khan hinted at taking to the streets after Eid (in June) against the anti-people policies of the PTI government. “After Eid there is possibility that the opposition will be on roads against the Imran Khan’s government that has caused an irreparable damage to the country especially economically. Those who have brought Imran Khan and company to the power will also be thinking about their decision.”

About going with the PPP, Senator Khan said: “Informally the opposition is united and soon it will sit together to devise a joint strategy.”

PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari had recently threatened the ‘selected PTI government’ about marching on Islamabad. “The time has come to send the incompetent government of Imran Khan home,” he said.

If PM Khan believed that sending the leadership of the opposition to jail would help the government suppress their voice, he was living in a fool’s paradise, Senator Khan said. “In fact the reason of the PTI government’s failure on every front during the past eight months is its sheer incompetence and involvement in corruption,” he alleged.

MPA Malik Mohammad Ahmad, spokesperson for PML-N’s Punjab chapter, said NAB had been used not only to bring the PTI to power but also against the opposition to give sustainability to the government.

“The government is inviting trouble for itself by targeting the opposition and the time is not far when the joint opposition will be on roads,” he said, adding that Mr Khan’s only focus was on grilling the opposition leaders through NAB while the whole nation was suffering due to bad economic policies.

“The opposition is already on same page to raise voice against unprecedented inflation, price hike, unemployment and etc. Coming to the roads against it is also on the cards,” Mr Ahmad said, adding that the opposition might also formulate a joint strategy for the parliament’s session on April 12.

PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif and his son, Hamza Shahbaz, are facing NAB action in assets beyond means case.

As Hamza, opposition leader in Punjab Assembly, got a two-day relief from the Lahore Court (LHC) averted his arrest, Shahbaz Sharif, opposition leader in National Assembly, is summoned for Tuesday before a NAB’s combined investigation team.

Asked how the PML-N would mobilise the workers on roads if its president Shahbaz Sharif, too, was arrested by NAB in income beyond means case, Senator Khan said: “There will be more reaction to it.”

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2019