LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz on Tuesday made a scathing attack on Prime Minister Imran Khan in her first public speech after last year’s general elections, saying the ‘selected’ premier was fully dependent on ‘someone’ as he came to power through the back door and was incapable of running the country.

She wondered why Mr Khan was so afraid of her father, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and said: “He (Imran Khan) lives in fear because he knows he has come to power through a conspiracy. That is why he knows if Nawaz Sharif is out of jail his government cannot last for a day.”

Maryam Nawaz was addressing the PML-N workers who gathered in a large number in Model Town here to observe the 21st anniversary of Pakistan’s nuclear tests. The ground was full to capacity as charged party workers jostled to get a place close to the stage. There were inadequate security arrangements at the venue.

Maryam held the hand of her cousin Hamza Shahbaz and waved towards the participants in an attempt to dispel the impression that there were any differences in the families of Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif.

Addressing Imran Khan, she said: “You know well that you have come to power through the back door by rigging the polls. And because of this, you are running the government in fear as you are dependent on someone’s signal for any decision. You have no standing of yourself that is why your ‘opening order’ [Asad Umar] is sent packing.”

She mocked the premier for his claim of not giving an NRO-like deal to the Sharif family. “I would like to ask him (PM Khan) to tell us who is asking for NRO and by the way does he have the power (to give NRO) to anyone,” she wondered.

The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf recently challenged Maryam’s appointment as the PML-N vice president in the Election Commission of Pakistan.

“Nawaz Sharif is on Imran Khan’s nerves. In all his interviews and speeches he made on container or else for the last many years, he talked about Nawaz. Perhaps Nawaz comes in his dreams too. Had he paid that much attention to the country’s affairs, it would not have been in such a bad situation,” she said and asked the premier to wake up and serve the people who were burdened greatly by inflation and price hike.

She said Mr Khan had no respect in the world because the (world) leaders also knew that he was a ‘puppet’ coming to power after stealing the people’s mandate. “Imran complains that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not take his telephone calls. I tell him why he does so because he knows that Khan has come to power through the back door. The heads of states in the world do not give him (Mr Khan) respect because they know he is a puppet and a stooge who stole the people’s mandate through conspiracy,” she said, adding that it was Modi who came to Pakistan when Nawaz Sharif was prime minister.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (the late Indian premier) also visited Pakistan because Nawaz Sharif was an elected prime minister, she said and added that Imran Khan used to call Nawaz Sharif ‘a friend of Modi’ but “we will not follow suit as we want peace with India”.

Maryam Nawaz further castigated the premier for what she described as making the country a beggar. “Under this inept and incapable prime minister who was declared ‘sadiq and ameen’ through collusion, Pakistan has emerged beggar in the world. He has also handed over the country to the IMF against a few dollars.”

She said no one in the world invited this “incompetent person” fearing that he would beg, adding that the “beggar prime minister” did not have any courage to face the public.

Talking about Mr Sharif’s decision to conduct nuclear tests in 1998, she said he had rejected the US president’s $5 billion offer and made the defence of the country invincible. She lamented that the man who made this country atomic power was languishing in Kot Lakhpat jail and the man (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) who laid the foundation of this (atomic) programme was hanged. “The people of Pakistan must remember that 70-year-old Nawaz is languishing in jail only for them,” she said.

Government response

Responding to Maryam’s hard-hitting speech against Mr Khan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information Firdous Ashiq Awan termed it against “social values”. “Our society does not permit such a language used by Maryam Nawaz about PM Khan. We can give a befitting reply but we do not want to violate the norms [of society],” she said, terming the PML-N public meeting in Lahore a “flop show”.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2019