GUJRAT: Waving a toy truck at a well-attended public meeting, PML-N chief organiser Maryam Nawaz Sharif in a renewed attack on Imran Khan and his ‘facilitators’ on Friday asked the PTI to use ‘truck’ as its election symbol instead of ‘bat’.

The suggestion came soon after an audiotape purportedly of PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry and his advocate brother Faisal Chaudhry surfaced.

In the tape, Mr Fawad purportedly asked Mr Faisal for arranging a meeting between two judges. He told Mr Faisal to assure the judges that a ‘truck’ stood behind them.

Ms Sharif said Imran Khan has been calling for contempt of court proceedings against her over her speeches about certain judges, but pointed to audio leaks featuring conversation between several PTI leaders about judges, and wondered whether the PTI chairman would make a similar demand for his party leaders.

“When Parvez Elahi, Yasmin Rashid and Fawad Chaudhry’s audiotapes surfaced, who were talking about the judges of the superior court, isn’t this contempt of court?” she asked, while addressing the PTI chairman.

“The truck has ruined the country and now all its wheels will be punctured and it will be sent back home,” Ms Sharif said and added that when she showed them the mirror they called it contempt of court.

Tells ‘facilitators’ to stop supporting Imran; claims judges admitted they were pressurised into convicting Nawaz

Dispelling the impression her party is shying away from polls, she said PML-N is fully ready to contest the elections whenever they are held and told the charged crowd that PML-N is going into the elections to win, and not to lose.

“Those who taunt us of being scared of elections have themselves gone into hiding in a rat’s hole,” she said, apparently referring to Imran Khan who has been living in his Zaman Park residence since a murder attempt on him last year.

The big rally was attended by PML-N workers from across Gujranwala and Gujrat divisions at Ghulam Hussain Park in Gujranwala.

Ms Nawaz announced that she would run the election campaign on the slogan of seeking justice for PML-N supreme leader Mian Nawaz Sharif.

“Are you ready to get justice for Nawaz Sharif and will you support me in seeking justice for their party leader?” she asked the audience amid applause.

She claimed that the judges who punished her father in false cases were now speaking that they had been pressurised to convict Nawaz Sharif.

“I ask the facilitators of Imran Khan why do you want to protect a person whose boat has sunk in deep waters,” Ms Sharif said.

She said Imran Khan was now “done and dusted” but his facilitators had still some time left in their jobs and wondered why were they sinking themselves along with him.

The PML-N leader said that the person who had allegedly doubled the country’s loan during his four years in office and who had entered into an agreement with the IMF had now been raising questions about the current inflation and price hike in Pakistan.

She further said that the man who allegedly hatched a conspiracy against then prime minister Nawaz Sharif with the help of Justice Khosa, Justice Saqib Nisar and retired Gen Faiz Hameed had now been asking about the reasons why Pakistan was going down. Similarly, she said, the person who was once called the “biggest dacoit” of Punjab by Mr Khan has now been given a top office in the PTI.

Questioning his capability as a leader, Ms Sharif said the PTI chairman failed during the PTI’s May 25 protest march, then again in the long march and now the Jail Bharo Tehreek which flopped because the leader himself was hidden in Zaman Park — which she termed Zamanat (bail) Park — but kept asking his workers to court arrest.

Similarly, she said, first he tendered resignation from the National Assembly, then dissolved the Punjab and KP assemblies and now he was trying to go back into the assembly. “Can a mentally stable person make such decisions?” she questioned.

Earlier, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that in contrast with the PTI, the leadership of PML-N had faced the jails boldly and did not ask its workers to go to jail.

Federal minister Rana Sanaullah and Khurram Dastgir Khan also spoke.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2023