LAHORE: The PML-N has criticised the government for continuing to transport party president Shehbaz Sharif from jail to courts or hospital in an armoured vehicle despite the fact that the opposition leader in the National Assembly suffers from chronic backache.

“We condemn the shifting of Shehbaz Sharif to [General] hospital [for his CT Scan there] in an armoured car instead of being provided a better vehicle, keeping in view his chronic backache problem,” party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb said in a statement here on Monday.

Mr Sharif is in custody of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), facing multiple graft cases.

Alleging that Prime Minister Imran Khan was doing politics on the health of the opposition leader, she said Mr Khan could only tease Mr Sharif as the premier took pride in persecuting the opposition while the PTI was failing to run the country.

She also alleged that the Gilgit-Baltistan election was stolen by incarcerating Shehbaz Sharif.

Meanwhile, PML-N Punjab information secretary Ms Azma Bukhari has strongly reacted to a statement by Punjab government’s spokesperson Ms Firdous Ashiq Awan, who suggested “Calibari Queen” [N League vice president Maryam Nawaz] and “son of Zardari” [PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari] to prove themselves “good babies” by accepting defeat in GB polls.

Ms Bukhari said the prosperous Punjab of Shehbaz Sharif was now at the mercy of “wheat and sugar mafias” as the government was engaged in “persecution” of the former chief minister and his son Hamza Shehbaz.

She alleged that the Punjab cabinet meeting held on Monday discussed ways and means to further distress the Sharifs through tactics like forcing the Anti-Corruption Establishment to act against the opposition.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2020