ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz on Sunday accused the government of getting help from ‘secret agencies’ to bring its members for voting in a vote of confidence for the prime minister on Saturday.
Speaking at a presser after chairing a meeting with senior party leaders about ‘manhandling’ of Shahid Kahqan Abbasi, Marriyum Aurangzeb and Musadik Malik outside Parliament House, she said: “We’ll retaliate with ten punches against the two [punches] as we know how and when to respond to PTI goons who assaulted my ‘elder brother’ Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Marriyum, and Musadik ”.
“The party will not take this lying down. The disrespect shown to senior leadership will not be tolerated,” she maintained.
Violence broke out on Saturday as a session of the National Assembly convened for a vote of confidence in the prime minister. PTI and PML-N members exchanged hot words which escalated to an exchange of physical blows.
A visibly perturbed Maryam, said that a discussion took place on the long march, the Daska by-election, the NA-249 by-election and the candidate to field.
“You can keep this lecture you like to give us on ethics and morality to yourselves,” she said addressing the government.
Maryam said that the ‘thuggery’ displayed, especially with Marriyum Aurangzeb, “is a debt on each PML-N member – one that they know full well how to pay”.
She then proceeded to discuss in greater detail what had been deliberated in the meeting of senior party leadership.
“The political landscape that has developed since the prime minister took his fake trust vote was discussed in great detail, as was the Chairman Senate polls,” she said.
Maryam claimed that it was “everyone’s consensus” that the way “the vote was forcibly taken yesterday with a sword put to everyone’s throats”, the exercise “has no legal standing, no constitutional standing, no political standing and no moral standing”.
She cast aspersions on PTI lawmakers having voted against party lines and in favour of opposition-backed candidate Yousuf Raza Gillani in the race for the Islamabad general Senate seat and then “all of a sudden” voting for the prime minister two days later.
“What prompted such a thing that they changed their decision?” she asked, before answering her own query, saying: “The decision did not change [on its own]. It was forcibly changed.”
Maryam said that the night before the no-trust vote, the entire parliament lodges had been “turned into a bunker”, “as if it is North Waziristan”.
“The entire night you kept a watch on your MNAs with drone cameras,” she claimed.
She said that it was “unprecedented” that a leader, despite being in power, had been voted against by his own party members.
She said this is besides the “no trust being expressed from the people of all four provinces”.
Maryam went on to say that the party is “in touch with two PTI MNAs” who “were unwilling to cast their vote but were forcibly kept in a container in a Golra compound”.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021