KARACHI: Opposition parties under the umbrella anti-government Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) alliance stuck to its aggressive tone and staged a massive power show in Karachi on Sunday with Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz saying their campaign was not against Imran Khan and he should stay away from the “fight between big guns”.
Meanwhile, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari urged the prime minister to take heed from “past dictators” while Jamiat-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman in a snide remark targeted at the prime minister urged the army chief to maintain a distance from “foolish friends”.
At a jam-packed Bagh-i-Jinnah in the shadow of the Quaid’s mausoleum, the leaders of the opposition parties appeared unimpressed with the warning of the PM and vowed that their struggle would continue till the fall of Imran Khan’s government.
The rally was the second in a series as the PDM had staged its maiden power show in Gujranwala on Friday. But while the earlier rally was mostly a PML-N show, Sunday’s event coincided with the 13th anniversary of the Oct 18, 2007 attack on the homecoming procession of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi that killed more than 200 people, making the event largely a PPP tour de force.
The tone for the rally was set by Maryam Nawaz well before she landed in Karachi when leaving her residence in Lahore she talked to the media and shared her thoughts while reacting to the recent speech of PM Imran.
“We are not afraid of prisons as we (she and her father) haven’t served jail terms earlier in a VIP manner,” she said. “Why is Imran Khan so worried? Mian Sahib didn’t address him in his speech. It’s not against him. The kids should stay away from the fight of elders. His speech and anger suggested that he has already lost the battle. He’s panicked and frustrated. It would only end with the fall of his government.”
She maintained the same tone at the Karachi rally where she counted the number of “blunders, corruption and incompetence of the Imran Khan government.” She said Mr Khan had admitted that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was with him and referred to the list of PTI government’s “achievements” in two years.
Ms Nawaz sent mixed messages to the establishment, especially compared to her father’s confrontational tone in Gujranwala.
“Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz salute our jawans and officers. Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz salute martyrs of our forces. Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz salute those parents who sacrifice their loved ones for the security of this motherland. It [movement of the opposition] is not against the forces. It’s our force. It’s force of every Pakistani. But yes. If anyone comes and bulldozes the mandate of people under his boots then he would be criticised and resisted,” she said.
Calling the PM a “coward”, she accused him of using the armed forces for his face-saving and declaring opponents as traitors only to save his skin and hide incompetence.
Mr Bhutto-Zardari said PM Imran Khan and his government would face the same fate as that of “past dictators”.
“Imran Khan should remember the past dictators. He should remember their life and fate. Your fate would not be different from them. You can never suppress people’s voices for long. The people’s anger would sweep away the government and its foundations.”
Mr Bhutto-Zardari again warned the government of strong reaction from his party not only in the case of the 18th Amendment’s rollback and warned the government against trying to arrest leaders of the opposition and stop its movement through force.
