RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) workers and supporters have rolled up their sleeves for a big political show in Islamabad on March 27 as the local chapter of the party has asked its workers to accord a warm welcome to the rally that will be led by Maryam Nawaz and Hamza Shehbaz from Lahore.

The PML-N Rawalpindi chapter also warned Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed that its workers would make his entry into Rawalpindi difficult.

In a meeting of party workers on Sunday, PML-N Metropolitan President and former mayor Sardar Naseem said Sheikh Rashid Ahmed was the biggest ‘lota’ (turncoat) who had ditched PML-N when Gen Pervez Musharraf came into power.

Workers asked to accord warm welcome to rally led by Maryam, Hamza

“Once the workers decide to ban your entry, you (Sheikh Rashid) will not be able to enter Lal Haveli,” Mr Naseem said.

He said his party had told workers and supporters to get ready for the power show in Islamabad on March 27 and protect the parliamentarians from PTI’s goons.

The meeting decided that women workers would provide protection to the party’s women lawmakers and youth wing to the party’s leadership on March 27.

It also asked the party’s supporters to bring at least 200 people from each union council.

All union council chairmen will lead their separate rallies and join the main rally led by Hanif Abbasi and Sardar Naseem in the city and Malik Abrar and Daniyal Chaudhry in the cantonment areas.

Talking to Dawn, Mayor Sardar Naseem said his party’s workers would welcome the rally led by Maryam Nawaz and Hamza Shehbaz and join them on their way to Islamabad.

“All party workers and supporters will go to Islamabad in the shape of rallies led by former MNA Hanif Abbasi, former MPAs Raja Hanif, Ziaullah Shah and others. Women wing, youth wing, student federation and minority and labour wings will bring their separate rallies,” Mr Naseem said.

He said the PML-N had finalised the plan to counter arrest and if the interior ministry tried to sabotage their peaceful rally, party workers from every street and area of the garrison city would foil its attempt.

“Rawalpindi is the fort of the PML-N which can be seen from the results of the local government elections in the cantonment areas from where not a single PTI member got elected,” he added.

He said in the last three years, the PTI government had done nothing for the residents of Rawalpindi and now Imran Khan had threatened to bring people to Islamabad.

“In Rawalpindi, many PTI local leaders are contacting PML-N as they want to join the party,” he claimed.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2022