PML-N president says PDM govt signed agreement with IMF to prevent bankruptcy n Claims PML-N legal team has cleared Nawaz Sharif’s return n Nawaz will land in Lahore with a protective bail n After settling legal issues Nawaz will work hard to restore Pakistan’s s devastated economy.

LAHORE  -  Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif during a press conference on Friday strongly reacted to the questions about the homecom­ing of his elder brother and for­mer prime minister Nawaz Shar­if stating that Nawaz Sharif will arrive at Minar-e-Pakistan in La­hore on October 21. 

“This question whether Nawaz Sharif is coming or not, should not be asked again and again. Now this thing must end. This is confirmed now. Nawaz Shar­if will, God willing, return on Oc­tober 21”. He also said that his PML-N party’slegal team had cleared Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan on October 21 and his elder brother would come back to Pakistan to face the law and the Constitution. Nawaz will land with a protective bail and after settling legal battle he will work to restore the devastated economy, he added.

Shehbaz Sharif also demand­ed an impartial accountability process for all the quarters, stat­ing that until now the baton of accountability has been passed only on politicians. While appre­ciating the performance of his 16- month government, he said that he served the people even in limited time and in difficult circumstances. He claimed that he gave Kisan package which in­creased production, made prog­ress in every field. “Our govern­ment did not burden those who consume 200 units of electric­ity, and decided to make petrol cheaper for motorcyclists, be­sides providing free flour to poor people.”

Criticising the PTI govern­ment he said, when PDM gov­ernment inherited inflation from the previous government, the PTI government had signed an agreement with the IMF only to violate agreement later.

He accused PTI government of abolishing free medicines facili­ty for patients.

Shehbaz highlighted the ne­cessity of IMF agreement and said that his government signed an agreement with the IMF to prevent bankruptcy, adding, if we had not struck a deal with IMF the Pakistan would’ve de­faulted and added had Pakistan gone bankrupt.

There would have been cha­os and anarchy as petrol, med­icine and other basic essentials would’ve had vanished from the country, he said. Adding to this he said it was very easy for him to hold elections after the suc­cess of no-confidence motion against PTI chairman, but he and his party sacrificed their politics to prevent the state from going bankrupt by show­ing responsibility.

Shehbaz Sharif regretted that Nawaz Sharif carried out six nu­clear tests in response to Indian blasts, he commenced a project like CPEC in the country, erad­icated loadshedding and ter­rorism yet his government was toppled under a conspiracy and the journey of development was stalled following Nawaz ouster from power back in 2017. Had we compromised Nawaz Shar­if would not have been sent to jail, he said. The former prime minister insisted the slogan of PML-N, “Vote ko Izzat Do” means to give respect to the vot­er, and to let their chosen lead­er rule freely without any inter­ference in governance matters. He further said that nations that maintain governance continui­ty thrive in every field, without political and economic stability, development cannot take place, our government has restored re­lations with friendly countries, which are likely to improve fur­ther after the arrival of Nawaz Sharif. Expressing indifference and ignorance of forced disap­pearance of journalists during his tenure, Shehbaz Sharif said he was not aware of any such incident of a journalist being picked up in his tenure.

Speaking about the conduct of general elections, he said there should be clean and transparent elections, whoever gets votes in the elections should be al­lowed to form the government. He hoped that Election Commis­sion of Pakistan (ECP) would realise and perform its utmost duty of holding elections on ap­pointed time. Commenting on the relationship with PPP he said, Bilawal Bhutto and our politics are different in nature, both political forces will contest elections on their own agen­das, terming Bilawal as younger brother, he will meet him soon.