Daily Times

PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz, while referring to the PTI, said on Monday that a ‘terrorist party’ cannot be allotted an electoral symbol.

The party leader’s remarks came as she kicked off the PML-N’s much-awaited election campaign in Okara ahead of the February 8 polls.

Amid mounting criticism over the delay in its election strategy and ticket allocations, the PML-N only four days ago unveiled plans to kickstart its electoral campaign from today. It also finalised the distribution of party tickets across 21 districts, including Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, and Gujranwala. Bashing the PTI even further, Maryam said that the party’s election symbol was not a ‘bat’, but a ‘baton’. “The baton that its workers held in their hands, and used to threaten the people. The baton that they used to attack military installations [on May 9, 2023],” she added.

Casting doubt on ex-prime minister Imran Khan’s injuries sustained during the Wazirabad attack, she said, “The oppressor is now forced to save face, sometimes by using the excuse of a plastered leg and other times by being in a wheelchair.”

“The one who didn’t tire out labelling others as thieves didn’t even leave a watch. Your election symbol should have been a stolen watch,” the PML-N leader said in reference to Imran’s conviction in the Toshakhana case.

Maryam said there was much hue and cry over the PTI’s electoral symbol being withdrawn, adding that it was actually the party’s “fraudulent intra-party polls that have been exposed”. “Such people are made a lesson for others to learn from, not allotted electoral symbols,” she added.

The PML-N leader said the role of everyone who played a role in “oppressing” former three-time prime minister, also her father Nawaz Sharif, was coming on to an end. She said it was not Nawaz Sharif “avenging the injustices meted out to him, but the law of nature”. She said the stronger a government the PML-N supremo gets, the better the facilities people will get.

Maryam concluded her address by thanking the people of Okara who “attended the rally despite the severe cold and fog”.

Separately, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif on Monday said February 8 wasn’t a day just for exercising the right to vote but also for setting a future goal for the nation, as he called for complete unity to solve the current problems. Shehbaz, in a post shared through social media, asked the people to unite for providing jobs, cheap power and gas, arresting inflation and ensuring development in the country besides the hate prevailing in the society.