GUJRANWALA: The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) began its countrywide protest campaign against the government by holding a maiden power show in Gujranwala on Friday.
The PDM, comprising around a dozen opposition parties on a joint platform to get rid of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, was formed last month and had planned six big rallies across the country until December to force the government to call fresh elections.
PDM held its first anti-government public rally in Gujranwala’s Jinnah Stadium, with an approximate footfall of 50,000-60,000.
PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif also joined in from London and addressed the anti-government jalsa.
Addressing a gathering of thousands at the venue, Maryam Nawaz said that she was fighting for the businesses that had been destroyed during the incumbent government’s tenure and the journalists who were being censored.
“People [journalists] who stood with the truth were fired from their jobs,” she said. “I have come to present the case of the Lady Health Workers as well before you, who are languishing on the roads of Islamabad.”
Maryam said no one had the right to oust elected representatives of the people. “It is you [masses] who should form governments and oust them as well,” she said.
Referring to the Panama leaks court judgement, the PML-N vice president said that those who referred to the Sharif family as a “Sicilian Mafia” now knew what the term mafia means.
“All they could find from Nawaz Sharif’s corruption was the Iqamah,” she said. “They used to refer to us as the Sicilian Mafia, I’m sure now they know what a mafia really is,” said Maryam.
Blaming the government for skyrocketing prices of food items, she said that it was a tactic of the PTI government to ensure food items disappeared from the market. When their prices increase, the food items return to the market, she said.
“Today you have suppressed the media which is why no one talks about your corruption,” she said, referring to PM Imran Khan.
