LAHORE: PML-N President Nawaz Sharif has directed the governments of his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif in the Centre and daughter Maryam Nawaz in Punjab to work together to address the soaring electricity bills issue which is a must for the revival of the party.

Presiding over a party meeting of senior leaders at Model Town here on Thursday, the elder Sharif discussed host of issues, including expensive electricity, revival of the party, local body polls and coordination between the federal and Punjab governments.

Before chairing this huddle, Mr Sharif spent weeks at his favourite hill station, Murree. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, Deputy PM Ishaq Dar, federal ministers Ahsan Iqbal, Khawaja Asif, Attaullah Tarar and Awais Leghari, National Asse­mbly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, PM’s both sons — Hamza and Salman — PML-N Punjab president Rana Sana­ullah and Punjab senior minister Marriyum Aurangzeb were am­ong the other participants of the meeting.

Mr Sharif appeared to be concerned about the revival of PML-N, which could not do well in February polls. “Nawaz Sharif has asked the federal and Punjab governments to work together to find out a solution to soaring electricity bills,” Ahsan Iqbal, federal minister for planning and develop­ment and PML-N secretary general, told Dawn after the meeting.

He said that the PML-N government believed that it could manage to bring down electricity prices to provide relief to the masses like it handled the power loadshedding problem in 2013.

He said the party president had also asked him to prepare a plan regarding the resumption of party’s political activities, besides its re-organisation.

“The meeting also discussed holding of local body polls. It has been decided that the local body law of the Hamza Shehbaz government in Pun­jab will be restored, undoing the PTI government’s tinkering to it,” Mr Iqbal said.

He said the party wanted the local bodies election at the earliest but first the legislation would be made in the Punjab Assembly for an effective local government system. Mr Iqbal said the meeting also decided to hold the party’s Central Executive Committee huddle on a monthly basis.

Asked whether the arrest of former ISI chief Faiz Hameed was discussed in the meeting, Mr Iqbal said: “It is a welcoming decision (to lay hand on Mr Hameed). It is the internal matter of the institution of army to hold accountability of its men.”

According to a statement issued by the party after the meeting, the huddle pondered over providing relief to the masses on soaring electricity bills.

“The PTI government was responsible for causing inflation and expensive electricity bills. Now people are looking up to us for the relief,” Nawaz Sharif said.

The elder Sharif also talked about sacrificing his party’s political capital for saving the country from default. “Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told his elder brother about his government’s economic road map wh­i­ch he said will be presented to him soon,” the statement said.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2024