NRO a byword for political deals: PML-N

Party vows to neither take NRO nor allow PTI to take one

LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has unequivocally stated that its leaders were not seeking a National Reconciliation Order (NRO) like deal despite repeated attempts by the government to portray the same.

It also said that its leaders – particularly Vice President Maryam Nawaz - were using the term at public gatherings and at rallies to make it clear to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government as well as the public that Prime Minister Imran Khan would ‘not get an NRO-like deal and he would be held accountable for his actions’.

During a July 12 gathering in Zafarwal, Maryam had even stated, in an apparent rebuke to the government, that “it would in fact be Imran Khan who would be asking for an NRO”.

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Later in the same month, Maryam termed the Charter of Economy, offered to the government by her uncle, the opposition leader in the National Assembly and party president Shehbaz Sharif, as an NRO. Just recently, she again stated that “no NRO-like deal would be provided to the prime minister who has traded Kashmir”.

According to the PML-N, the term NRO has become a byword for deal-making in the corridors of power. “Maryam is using the term as a metaphor to in essence say that the opposition will not let PM Imran off the hook for his economic and foreign policy blunders,” said a senior party leader.

He said that the party was using the word in a tit-for-tat measure to give the government a taste of its own medicine. “It should not be taken literally,” he added.

He said that the PM, through constant innuendo, was trying to suggest that PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, who is currently serving a prison term, “was seeking a deal similar to the deal sought from former dictator Pervez Musharraf.

In that deal, brokered by Arab countries in the wake of the 1999 coup that resulted in Nawaz’s imprisonment, the ousted premier was exiled to Saudi Arabia. “This is an attempt to damage the PML-N’s reputation.”

Party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb, when asked what the term was referring to, said that when the government used it, it was always in the context that implied that the PML-N was seeking a deal, purportedly to find a way out for its detained leaders.

However, she added that people who were willing to face hardships and court arrest don’t seek a deal. “When we use NRO, it is always to convey that the people of Pakistan will not let PTI and Imran to get away scot free.”

She also dismissed the impression that there were any difference of opinion within the Sharif family. “Both Shehbaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz have the same narrative.”

She added that there was no truth to the news that Maryam Nawaz had differences with Shehbaz over the Kashmir issue and the charter of economy. “Although the PML-N encourages difference of opinion, dialogue and consultation within the party, but once a policy line is agreed upon all leaders follow the same line, which was provided by Shehbaz as party president.”