KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo Nawaz Sharif has assured Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman that PML-N will play a strong role as an opposition party.

In an attempt to remove misgivings about the party’s stance, Mr Sharif talked to the JUI-F chief over the phone and assured him that any cooperation with the government was against the party’s position, Geo News quoted sources as saying.

A JUI-F source confirmed to Dawn the telephonic contact between the two leaders.

Mr Sharif and the JUI-F leadership agreed that time had come to evolve a ‘mutual agenda’ to give tough time to the government, according to the TV channel. The PML-N supremo, who has been in London for his medical treatment since November last year, assured the Maulana that his party would not disappoint him.

The JUI-F chief reportedly suggested that leaders of the opposition parties should stop appearing before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in connection with their cases.

Maulana Fazl said the leadership of both major opposition parties [PPP and PML-N] were being harassed and threatened through NAB and different cases against them.

The JUI-F chief said the opposition parties should launch a massive Jail Bharo Tehreek [filling jails] by courting arrest, the sources said.

The Maulana was not happy with the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party for not participating in his party’s Islamabad sit-in last year and for recently extending support to the

PTI government on FATF-related legislation.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2020