PML-N youth wing leader steps down following 'anti-state' speech

An office bearer of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has tendered his resignation after party President Shehbaz Sharif distanced himself from the worker, who had had slogans raised against the state institutions during the Pakistan Democratic Movement rally in Faisalabad.

Shehbaz had claimed that the person who spoke against the state institutions was an outsider, saying that he was neither a party’s office bearer nor a worker.

The slogans had drawn the ministers’ ire, as some of them said that the PML-N had “dug its own political grave”.

PML-N Faisalabad Chapter Youth Wing Vice President Abdul Majid Saud during a news conference at the Faisalabad Press club said that he had got slogans raised against the state institutions on stage during the PDM rally at Dhobi Ghat, Faisalabad (during Maryam Nawaz’s speech) on repeated insistence of Captain (retd) Muhammad Safdar.

He claimed that he was even appreciated by Safdar after the sloganeering. But, he said, he was disappointed to hear later that his party president disowned him. “Despite the time, blood and sweat given to the party, it was sad to hear that.”

He said for the last 12 years he had served the party as a worker, while for the past four years he had served on different positions in the youth wing whereas for the last one year he was serving as vice president.

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He tore his appointment letter issued to him last year in 2020 and announced his resignation at the news conference.

He said he was ashamed for his actions and said sorry to the “sensitive institution”. He warned his fellow workers not to say anything on anyone’s insistence against the country’s interests, as it “is against the law and against what he described as a ‘sensitive institution’”.

A journalist, present during the rally, also validated Saud’s claim that he had got the slogans raised on Safdar’s insistence. The journalist told The Express Tribune that Safdar had in fact asked at least three people, before Saud, to raise slogans during Maryam’s speech but no one apparently agreed. He said when Safdar asked Saud, he without giving it much thought, went for it.

Last Sunday, Shehbaz had condemned the sloganeering against the state institutions, saying that raising such slogans was against national interest. He also tried to distance his party from the sloganeering, claiming that the person who had raised the slogan had nothing to do with the party. Shehbaz had then said slogans raised in Faisalabad did not reflect the PML-N policy. Shehbaz, who spoke against the sloganeering during his said media address, did not talk about Maryam’s speech during which she too had criticised him.