LAHORE: PML-N chief organiser Maryam Nawaz has alleged that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan is making efforts to return to power “riding the judiciary”.

“Imran Khan is desperate and he wants to return to power riding the judiciary. Imran again needs crutches to come to power,” Ms Nawaz said while talking to the party’s young leaders in Model Town here on Tuesday. This is her second speech in a week in which she targeted the judiciary with regard to the PTI chief.

“The judiciary is still behaving like a facilitator of Imran Khan as he gets off scot-free of charges of corruption and misuse of power despite availability of evidence against him. The judiciary is still facilitating him,” she recently said.

In Monday’s meeting, she questioned the role of a former chief justice in disqualifying her father, Nawaz Sharif, who has been living in self-imposed exile since November 2019 on medical grounds. “Where has Saqib Nisar been? Today I am looking for the Dam Baba Jee to ask him to tell the people that you had given ‘sadiq aur amin certificate’ to Imran Khan,” she questioned and said that in order to prove that only one person (Imran) was honest an organised campaign against other politicians was run during the last 10 years to tag them as ‘corrupt and dishonest’.

Ms Nawaz, who was appointed the party’s senior vice president and chief organiser last month with a task to reorganise the party, has been given two assignments — counter Imran Khan’s rising popularity and his pressure tactics on institutions, the judiciary and the army, and inject new life into the beleaguered PML-N.

Says federal govt can’t provide jobs in trying times

She expressed her delight over the Imran-Bajwa wrangling, saying those who targeted Nawaz Sharif were today fighting with each other. “Gen Bajwa said he had videos in which Imran told him to do this against Nawaz Sharif,” she said and added as Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had retired, Imran Khan started targeting him. “Earlier, Imran used to say that Bajwa helped him a lot and now he is blaming him (Bajwa) for his ouster (from the PM House),” she said and alleged that

Mr Khan’s policies strained Pakistan’s relations with the US and western world.

She also mocked the former premier for taking U-turn on the cipher controversy. After months of allegations, Mr Khan recently gave a clean chit to the United States saying Gen Bajwa was responsible for the ‘conspiracy’ which resulted in his ouster via a no-confidence motion in April last year.

No jobs for the youth

Maryam Nawaz told the young leaders that the government in the Centre could not give jobs to the youth under the current economic situation.

“The current economic situation does not allow us to generate new jobs,” she said, and hastened to blame Mr Khan for the economic woes of the country and told the participants that it was the PTI chief who had promised 10 million jobs but failed to deliver.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2023