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ISLAMABAD, April 17 (PTI) Pakistan Home Minister Rana Sanaullah has said that PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif will return from London once election preparations for the general election begin.
He also made it clear that elections in the politically crucial Punjab province would not be held on May 14, despite the Supreme Court order and the “full efforts” of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek Insafari (PTI) party led by former prime minister Imran. Khan is held every day.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who currently lives in London, will return to oversee the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party’s campaign, Geo News quoted senior party leaders as saying.
The ailing Nawaz has been living in London for treatment since November 2019 after the High Court granted him a four-week suspended sentence. The 73-year-old leader served seven years in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat prison for the Al-Azizia corruption case before leaving.
The issue of holding provincial elections has taken center stage in Pakistani politics as Khan has been pushing for early elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
On April 5, Pakistan’s Supreme Court said the decision of the Pakistan Election Commission to postpone the vote in Punjab to October 8 and set May 14 as the polling date in the province was “unconstitutional”.
As the country’s poll date is being considered, Sanaullah claimed on Sunday that elections for the Punjab state assembly will not be held on May 14 despite the “all-out efforts” of the opposition PTI, Geo News reported.
Speaking to the media in Faisalabad on Sunday, he said elections across the country will be held at the appointed time this year.
Despite a Supreme Court order to hold elections in Punjab on May 14 and pressure from the former ruling party led by Imran Khan, the security czar said the elections would be held “together” under a caretaker arrangement.
“Despite all efforts, elections will not be held on May 14,” he said.
“If elections are not in May, October is not too far away,” said a senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader.​​
The PTI dissolved the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assemblies on January 14 and 18, respectively, to force the ruling coalition to call early elections.
Sanaullah called former Prime Minister Khan a “fitna” (chaos), saying he came to power through a “conspiracy”.
“Their (PTI) policies have created a crisis for the country for more than four years.”
“PML-N has been bringing the country out of crisis,” he added. Sanaullah said Khan once claimed he would rather kill himself than turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“It was (Imran Khan’s) government that signed the agreement with the IMF, not us. The difficulty was only due to the previous government’s agreement.”
The current government, led by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), has taken tough measures, including increasing taxes and energy prices, and allowing its currency to devalue to restart a $6.5 billion IMF lending program.
The funds would provide some relief to countries still plagued by dollar shortages that have raised the odds that the economy will slip into recession ahead of this year’s election.
Pakistan is grappling with a major economic crisis as it awaits much-needed $1.1 billion in funding from the Washington-based International Monetary Fund as part of a $6.5 billion rescue package approved by the IMF in 2019.
Load shedding and terrorism were eradicated during the PML-N tenure, the federal minister said, adding that the country now faces multiple crises due to PTI’s “wrong” policies.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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