PESHAWAR: In a second power show of his party within a week, a defiant Nawaz Sharif on Sunday hit back at the judiciary for issuing contempt of court notices to Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry and federal Priva­tisation Minister Daniyal Aziz for their ‘hard-hitting speeches’ against the apex court.

“First you issued a contempt notice to Tallal and then summoned Daniyal. How you will answer God?” said the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president and former prime minister, who was disqualified by a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court last year for not declaring his salary that he claimed he never had received.

At the Peshawar rally, which was organised after a party show in Jaranwala, a lawmaker of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Babar Saleem, who had been elected on a Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) ticket from Swabi, announced joining the PML-N.

Mr Sharif confined his tirade to the judiciary and his political rival, Imran Khan, as he thinly mentioned “mainstreaming of Fata” during his speech.

Ex-premier continues criticism of judiciary over contempt notices to ministers

Holding hands of the two ministers on the stage, the ousted prime minister asked a cheering crowd: “Will you people accept their disqualification?” He did not make mention of the one-month jail sentence given to PML-N senator Nehal Hashmi on contempt charges. Then Mr Sharif asked the crowd: “Will you accept a court verdict to disqualify Nawaz forever?” The crowd chanted, “No, no”.

Mr Sharif appealed to the people of Peshawar to elect his party with an overwhelming majority in the general election, adding that this would allow the party to make “laws to stop disqualification of an elected prime minister in future”.

“I am fighting your war and want to eradicate all discriminatory laws with your [masses’] strength,” said Mr Sharif, accompanied by his daughter, Maryam Nawaz.

Maryam Nawaz criticised the disqualification of her father and issuance of notices to the two ministers. However, she did not mention the judiciary by name in her speech.

Regarding his dismissal, Mr Sharif reiterated that the masses had elected him prime minister for five years, but only “the five persons” (judges) disqualified him. “What was my fault? Had I been disqualified for receiving bribe or for not receiving salary from my son. Where is the sanctity of vote?” he questioned.

For the past 70 years, the PML-N president said, “this game is being played in the country.”

Chiding PTI chief Imran Khan by calling him “Ladlay” (favourite), Mr Sharif asked him to look at the crowd in Peshawar claiming the size showed that the people did not accept the disqualification of their leader. He said the masses knew that he “worked day and night” for development, ending loadshedding and building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

He also claimed that the PML-N government had chased out militants and restored peace. However, he expressed concern over the martyrdom of soldiers in a suicide bombing in Swat on Saturday.

The PML-N president said Mr Khan was fooling the people of KP as the latter had not fulfilled his commitments. He said that Mr Khan had announced building 350 small dams to export electricity. In the name of planting a billion trees, billions of rupees had been misappropriated, he said. The person “involved in theft and misuse of official helicopters of KP government has been declared Sadiq (truthful) and Ameen (honest),” he said while referring to the National Accountability Bureau probe into the alleged misuse of choppers by Mr Khan.

Maryam Nawaz also criticised Mr Khan’s policies. She said: “A liar who had levelled baseless allegations [against the PML-N leaders] for four years cannot be called a leader. The people of KP had elected him for five years for development, but he [Mr Khan] brought containers on roads.”

She said the PTI government failed to establish new schools, colleges or a chain of well-equipped hospitals in KP. She said Mr Khan had not even mentioned the brutal murder of a woman in Kohat and a minor girl in Mardan as the PTI had allegedly politicised the KP police. She asked the people of KP to demonstrate their respect for Mr Sharif through their vote in the upcoming general election.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2018