MANSEHRA/BATTAGRAM: Former prime minister and leader of the opposition PML-N Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has flayed the PTI government over ‘unprecedented inflation and other socioeconomic crises’ and urged the people to help his party oust it.

       He also claimed that if the current rulers stayed put, the country would go bankrupt.

       “I am here to deliver you Salam of [PML-N supremo and former prime minister] Nawaz Sharif. If you extend your support to us as you did in the past, we can force this [PTI] government out of power,” he told a public meeting in Dasu, the district headquarters of Upper Kohistan district, on Wednesday.

       Mr Abbasi said the people hadn’t witnessed any positive change in their lives since the PTI formed the government in the centre over three years ago.

       PML-N leader seeks people’s support to oust govt

       He said the PTI, which claimed power through a stolen public mandate, had caused serious economic and political problems for the country.

       The PML-N leader said the government should be ousted without delay to ensure the holding of free and fair general elections in the country.

       “We will force this government into quitting as if it remains in power any further, the country will go bankrupt,” he said.

       Mr Abbasi said the people hadn’t witnessed any positive change in their life since the PTI formed the government in the centre three and a half years ago.

       He said the last PML-N government launched mega development projects in the country for national development and the 4300 megawatts Dasu hydropower project was one of them.

       The PML-N leader added that the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, had released funds for Dasu project to ensure its early completion.

       He said if free and fair elections were held, the PML-N would come to power in the centre and provinces.

       On the occasion, PML-N senior vice-president Sardar Mohammad Yusuf said his party’s previous governments had addressed national issues effectively and if it was elected yet again, it would do so.

       Former deputy speaker of the National Assembly Murtaza Javed Abbasi and former MPA Abdul Sattar also addressed the gathering.

       In Battagram area, PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Wednesday said his party would come to power again by sweeping the next elections.

       Accompanied by PML-N leaders Murtaza Javed Abbasi and Sardar Mohammad Yusuf on the way to Kohistan to attend a workers’ convention, Mr Abbasi said the people were fed up with the ruling PTI’s change narrative due to high corruption incidence and large-scale bad governance in the country.

       He accused Prime Minister Imran Khan-led government of committing massive corruption in the use of Covid-19 funds and said the money was meant for the purchase of medicines and equipment, but it was siphoned off.

       Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2021