WAZIRABAD - PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Monday said that people from all walks of life were struggling to survive due to the inflation caused by the government’s policies.

Addressing a rally in Wazirabad as part of the election campaign for PP-51, Maryam asked the crowd whether any of them had got a job from the 10 million jobs promised by the PTI government or a house from the 5 million houses pledged by the government.

She said the government had accused her of playing the “Punjabi card” after she raised her voice for the province, but said she would continue to speak for Punjab as well as other provinces being “the daughter of Pakistan”. “But when it comes to snatching Punjab’s bread and aata and hike in price of Punjab’s sugar, Maryam will stand with Punjabis with her heart and soul,” she said.

Maryam, speaking in Urdu interspersed with Punjabi, said farmers, labourers, daily wage workers, traders and businessmen were all frustrated today and could not afford basic utilities and food items.

Although things are broken, Maryam said, “Nawaz Sharif will come and everything will be fixed.” The PML-N leader alleged that electricity in the country was expensive because “those financing Imran Khan’s expenses deliberately imported expensive LNG”.

“The [government] took loans of Rs15,000 billion but did not lay a single brick,” she said, alleging that the metro bus project started by the PTI government had also failed.

Maryam said the “actual reason” why Prime Minister Imran Khan had been pursuing an open ballot for next month’s Senate elections was that his own MNAs and MPAs “are escaping from his grasp”.

“I want to state to PTI’s old-time workers, I have full sympathy for you but you can’t get Senate tickets because you don’t have billions of rupees to spend on Imran Khan,” she added. “It is Imran Khan’s compulsion, he has to give Senate tickets to those whose money he takes and eats.”