GUJRAT: Addressing elements opposing the accountability of those responsible for ousting Nawaz Sharif, Punjab PML-N President Rana Sanaullah on Thursday expressed dismay over insinuations the party should not press for justice.

Speaking at a consultative meeting of the party’s Gujranwala and Gujrat divisions chapters, he recalled that certain figures calling the shots at the time had thrown the country into the crisis when it was progressing towards prosperity by orchestrating Nawaz Sharif’s ouster.

This was done to Nawaz Sharif for a third time and when the leadership seeks to bring these characters to justice, then “we are told that they have come back with their agenda of accountability”.

Rana Sanaullah, while rejecting their call, asked those elements, “Should not we even take the names of those characters who caused [the national] crisis”.

The meeting was attended by the party officials, former lawmakers and ticket holders from six districts. Gujranwala is considered a strong bastion of PML-N.

The meeting was convened in connection with preparations for according a rousing reception to PML-N supremo and former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif upon his return to Lahore from London on Oct 21. Every ticket holder was tasked with bringing at least 500 people to the party’s rally to be held at Minar-i-Pakistan the same day.

It is pertinent to note that Nawaz Sharif started demanding the accountability of former generals and judges ahead of the upcoming elections.

He blamed former army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa and former ISI chief Faiz Hamid for the prevailing political and economic crises in the country.

In 2017, the Supreme Court disqualified then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif from holding public office in the Panama Papers case, making it the third time that he was ousted from office.

“The country can come out of the crisis by following the policies made by Nawaz Sharif,” claimed former interior minister Sanaullah. He said their narrative was one: service of Pakistan.

“We will resume the journey from the same point where it stopped on July 28, 2017,” he declared.

Referring to the PTI, he said that characters involved in the May 9 incidents were being brought to justice. He said there was no such law in the world that advocates forgiving a crime to pave the way for a person to contest the elections. He added that they would not let it happen.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2023