Nawaz urges Karachi people to introspect

Former PM laments that he initiated development scheme for city but it always voted for ‘others’

LAHORE:

PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif has lamented that he has always worked for Karachi but when it comes to elections, the people of the country’s economic hub vote for “someone else”.

“We established peace in Karachi [during the PML-N’s rule between 2013 and 2018] but the people voted for someone else in elections. This is not justified as we had worked for the city sincerely. I urge the people of Karachi to introspect,” the former prime minister said on Monday.

Nawaz was addressing a meeting of the PML-N parliamentary board held to select the party’s election candidates for the province of Sindh and its capital Karachi.

Karachi, the country's most populous city, has been traditionally a stronghold of the MQM. However, in the last general elections of July 2018, the PTI emerged as the major party in the city.

"We initiated the Green Line in Karachi, Orange Line in Lahore, and metro bus service in [other cities of] Punjab. Let's ask the selected [PTI] government, why it failed to develop Karachi? Not even a water project could be completed.

“Who brought peace to Karachi? We did. For fifty years, there were discussions about coal in Sindh; we went there, extracted coal, set up plants, and generated electricity from it.

“We installed a 2,000-megawatt nuclear plant in Karachi. Everyone accepts that Nawaz Sharif established peace in Karachi, but when it was time to vote, the vote went elsewhere," he said.

The former premier said he has some plans for development of the city. He said the authorities have renamed the Super Highway as Karachi-Hyderabad motorway without building a real motorway.

“We will build a proper motorway from Karachi to Hyderabad, a motorway better than the one between Lahore and Islamabad."

Nawaz said he had similar complaints from the people of Chitral, where, he said, his party led government had built the Lowari Tunnel at a cost of Rs50 billion.

“Even the people of Chitral acknowledge that Nawaz Sharif built this tunnel. But when elections came, the vote went to Jamaat-e-Islami.”

The PML-N leader said he has never been accused of doing anything against the country or violating the Constitution. He said he spent less time in the corridors of power and more time in exile and prison cells for allegations that were set aside by courts in a few hearings.

“Our entire team was framed, yet we didn't lose courage, and today we are here," he said.
Reflecting on his past terms as the premier, the PML-N supreme leader said he was surprised when he was ousted from the prime minister’s office in 1999 and 2017.

"In 2017, the country was prosperous, CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor] was underway, petrol prices were low, and the rupee was strong. However, a selected person was brought in to replace me.”

He said that the Indian prime minister came to Pakistan during his tenure and the world was saying that soon Pakistan would become a regional power and would be part of G-20 nations.

However, he added that all the progress was reversed.

“We had said goodbye to the IMF [International Monetary Fund] but the selected one approached it again. We did not take loans from China during our government, instead, we returned loans. If the pace of progress had continued, we would have become a big power today,” he said.

At the parliamentary board meeting, the PML-N directed candidates in all national and provincial assembly constituencies to submit their nomination papers. However, it couldn't finalize the issuance of tickets to the candidates despite the fact that on Monday it held its 12th meeting.