LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Shehbaz Sharif says Daska by-poll result is an evidence that people are siding with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

“You’ve proved that bullying, rigging, bullets, kidnapping and vote-theft cannot alienate the people from Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N,” he said while greeting the people of Daska for voting PML-N nominee Nosheen Iftikhar to success in the by-election for NA-75.

Shehbaz Sharif, the opposition leader in National Assembly, is in Kot Lakhpat jail facing corruption charges in references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

In a message delivered through his family members who visited him in the jail, the PML-N president eulogised the efforts of party leaders and workers in the fight for respect of vote and said that their names would be written in golden letters in the history of democratic struggle.

“Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif are proud of you, prostrate before Allah Almighty and thank the people for posing trust in the party,” he directed the workers.

He said the whole country was reverberating with the verdict given by the people of Daska and added that the love and trust of the people was the greatest wealth and earning of the party.

The opposition leader pledged that if again voted to power the party would save the nation from the menace of poverty like it eradicated power loadshedding during its previous tenure. He said the problems of inflation and unemployment would also be solved, while agriculture and industrial sectors would be given equal attention.

Meanwhile, Punjab PML-N president Rana Sanaullah Khan has chided the government for failing to control inflation.

In a statement issued in response to Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid’s presser, the MNA from Faisalabad said one could not control inflation if one was focusing on controlling vote, a reference to Daska by-poll where 20 polling officers had been kidnapped allegedly by the government nominee for rigging purposes in the earlier vote held for the constituency on Feb 19.

The Election Commission ordered re-polling for the seat on April 10. It was won by the PML-N.

Rana Sana said that one could understand the agony of Sheikh Rashid and his boss (Prime Minister Imran Khan) on the victory of Nawaz Sharif’s narrative in Daska.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2021