In Lahore, the leader of the Muslim League (N) Mian Nawaz Sharif has said that even if we come into opposition, we will never do what the PTI did. This is our manifesto, if RTS had not been shut down in 2018, then we would have had our government at the center as well, just like we did in Punjab.
Speaking at the manifesto presentation in Lahore, Nawaz Sharif said that it is painful to remove someone from the government, the person should know why they were removed, they should know what mistake was made. I did not come here today to talk about the manifesto, if I were a former ruler, I would never have done what he did. Once from 2008 to 2013, there was a PPP government in which we had some differences with the judiciary, everyone signed the Charter of Democracy, and that person also did it, despite PPP breaking its promise, we had to do the Long March.
Nawaz Sharif said that the purpose of the Long March was fulfilled in Gujranwala because the judges had been restored, people said to take the march to Islamabad and bring back the Shahbaz government, but I refused, we acted on principle, there was a lot of violation of the Charter of Democracy but we endured it.
He said that on being asked by a journalist why I, as the opposition leader, should hold a Long March to end this government? It should be given time to complete its tenure, then we allied with Imran Khan’s sit-ins, what kind of politics is it to hold sit-ins against a government with a mandate, we are not in favor of it. Taher-ul-Qadri has nothing to do with Pakistani politics, he also came to hold a sit-in, Justice Naseem Malik decided that the talk of 35 punctures was not correct.
He said that later, Imran Khan demanded that a road be built from Bani Gala, so we built it, if he had said this earlier, we would have built the road first, what was so compelling about inviting me?
Nawaz Sharif said that even if we come into opposition, we will never do what he said, this is our manifesto. Maulana Fazlur Rehman once advised me to form a government with the PPP, which I refused, the PML-N should form the government, and he accepted my advice.
His statement was that he did not want to go into how RTS was shut down, but if it had not been shut down, we would have had our government at the center like Punjab.
Referring to the Hazara sit-ins in Quetta, he said that Imran Khan rejected the demand to meet the protesters, the demand of those whose 150 people were killed and was accused of political blackmail, I haven’t seen such a hard-hearted politician.
Nawaz Sharif said that we were about to leave the PTI government, for which Shahbaz Sharif’s program was also prepared, just four hours before the opponents gave us a U-turn on which we decided not to leave the government and took back the decision.
He said that the most Khyber Pakhtunkhwa people easily become fools who voted for Imran Khan.
Nawaz Sharif reiterated that we had to endure the most difficulty. We voted for Imran Khan.