LAHORE - PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif Tuesday expressed the hope that PML-N would succeed in forming government in the Punjab as his party had won maximum number of seats in the province.
“It is regrettable that we cannot make the ‘rigged election’ a part of the joys of the Independence Day,” the former chief minister said in his address after hoisting flag at the PML-N Secretariat at Model Town. Even after the lapse of 71 years, the ship of democracy in the country is in the whirlpool and the nation is groping in the dark to find its destination, he added.
He said before and after the polls severe rigging as well as maneuvering was committed on account of which not only the PML-N but also other parties rejected the election results. “Despite all this the PML-N members took oath in the National Assembly only to let democracy continue in the country,” Shehbaz said adding, democracy is the sole means to keep the nation intact and take the country forward. He said elections were grossly rigged and this fact should be probed and the nation taken into confidence if the country has to go ahead. “It must be looked into how the RTS broke down and how the Election Commission totally failed,” he asserted.
Shehbaz Sharif said fair elections will make Pakistan great for which lakhs of Muslims laid down their lives at the time of the partition. He said: “We made a number of mistakes in the past, but learnt no lesson. Let bygones be bygones, in the larger interest of the country,” Shehbaz Sharif said. He also laid stress on shrugging off ego and parochialism for the sake of the country.
We, as a nation, must continue to make efforts to achieve success and this is the way to break bagger’s bowl and translate Pakistan into the vision and dream of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Muhammad Iqbal. He said: “The Quaid had visualised Pakistan as an Islamic welfare state and our unity and struggle is a must if we have to achieve that end.”