People to bury inflation culprits on Feb 8: Nawaz

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has stated that on February 8—the election day—the people of Pakistan will bury forever the "culprits" who undid the progress made during the PML-N’s five-year rule between 2013 and 2018.

"Those who made survival of honest, hardworking, patriotic Pakistanis virtually impossible, would have to answer for their horrific deeds,” the PML-N supreme leader said while addressing a meeting of the party’s parliamentary committee on Wednesday.

“The largest JIT [Joint Investigation Team], with the largest bench [the people of Pakistan], will deliver the biggest decision on February 8," he said in an oblique reference to his 2017 disqualification by the Supreme Court on the basis of the finding of a JIT.

"That decision will be against the economic atrocities inflicted on the people of Pakistan. That decision will be for a prosperous, progressing, and economically stable and growing Pakistan," he added.

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Nawaz, who is recently exonerated in the two cases that emanated from the SC’s Panama Papers verdict of 2017, recounted how he was made to suffer unspeakable pain when he was not allowed to speak to his beloved wife on her deathbed

He narrated how he had to break the news of the death of his wife, Kulsoon Nawaz, to his daughter, Maryam Nawaz, while she was in jail. He listed the “grand smear campaign” ruthlessly run with insults and threats issued “by some sitting members of higher judiciary”.

He said baseless and frivolous cases were cooked up against him, cases which were at the time even mocked by legal experts but were pushed through to persecute him anyways. But, Nawaz said, he does not seek revenge for all that was unlawfully, illegally, and unjustly done against him.

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Nawaz said Pakistan was prosperous in 2017 and was heading in the right direction. "Petrol was cheap, the currency was strong, and the country had become a nuclear power. In terms of defence, economy, and politics, Pakistan was strong. It was said that soon Pakistan would become the fastest-growing country in the region. But things had changed for the worse after my removal,” he added.

The former premier expressed hope that in the upcoming elections the people of Pakistan would elect those “who have proven they can serve the country and its people in a way that keeps them happy and on the path of progress.”

Meanwhile, the PML-N has officially directed its candidates across the country to submit their nomination papers to contest the upcoming general elections scheduled for February 8.In a statement, PML-N Secretary Information Marriyum Aurangzeb said that PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif has extended formal permission to aspirants seeking party tickets to submit their nomination papers across all national and provincial assembly constituencies.