MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Sunday claimed that she had heard people praise Nawaz Sharif in every corner of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

She was addressing a gathering in Dhirkot, from where Raja Faisal Azad, a novice in electoral politics, is contesting on behalf of the PML-N.

After noticing a young girl holding a placard inscribed with her party’s slogan, she said she felt proud that Nawaz Sharif’s “sacrifices had spread his message to areas as far as the mountains of Dhirkot”.

In what was against the factual position, Ms Nawaz said she had heard that rural women of AJK were not allowed to cast votes but nevertheless a large number of women had turned up at her public meeting.

She reiterated that she had Kashmiri blood in her veins which made her ties to Kashmir as strong as her ties to her father, Nawaz Sharif.

She said there were talks of “minus Nawaz Sharif”, but the people of Pakistan had reversed the narrative in favour of the PML-N leader.

“I can safely declare that this is a revolution as people have converged here in large numbers and Nawaz Sharif has clearly won and his enemy has been defeated,” she added.

Ms Nawaz said the PML-N campaign was so strong that PM Imran Khan had to personally pay visits to AJK.

Mocking the attendance in PM Khan’s first public meeting in Bagh on Saturday, she said the “small crowd” had foreshadowed PML-N’s victory in elections.

“Imran Khan has found a brand new ‘money making machine’ in Azad Kashmir,” she said, referring to PTI’s billionaire candidate, Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, from Bagh.

Of the PML-N candidate Faisal Azad, she said he was fighting against the people “who had always been allies of the people in power, including Pervez Musharraf.”

It was a reference to Muslim Conference (MC) candidate Sardar Attique Ahmed who and his late father Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan had long enjoyed close relationship with the Sharif family. However the relations soared after MC’s allegiance to Mr Musharraf.

The Dhirkot constituency has however always seen MC candidates defeating rivals.

“These people have no concern with the problems of the people of this constituency. Their only interest is in power,” she said of the MC leaders.

She said the prime minister is bent upon converting AJK into another province of Pakistan. “For this purpose he wants to install his puppet prime minister and set up in AJK,” she claimed.

Ms Nawaz exhorted PML-N voters to protect their vote and do not spare the elements trying to steal their mandate. She also showed the gathering to Nawaz Sharif by video-link amid cheerful slogans by the participants.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2021