Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz said on Tuesday that when floods had hit Punjab when PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif was the chief minister, the latter reached out to the affected farmers and did not leave their areas unless all of them were compensated against the losses, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

Addressing a press conference in Multan, he said that although 2018 elections were ‘rigged’, still PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif attended the parliament’s maiden session, and offered to the government ‘Charter of Economy’ in his speech at the session. “But sadly, he was taunted and hooted,” he said, and questioned as to what had become of those tall promises of provision of millions of jobs and building five million homes for the poor. 

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“Prime Minister Imran, who raises slogan of ‘state of Medina’, should bear this thing in mind that poor people’s homes and shops should not be bulldozed in the name of anti-encroachment operation,” he asserted.

He said another credit that went to the PML-N was that it had provided relief to the people from 22-hour long loadshedding. “It is this government’s incompetence that loadshedding has raised its head again,” he alleged.

Hamza said he and other PML-N leaders were kept in prison on corruption charges. “I was kept in jail for two years in connection with money laundering charges. Same thing happened to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Have you read Lahore High Court’s full bench verdict. It said there was no question of corruption by Sharifs; no proof of money laundering had been found against them,” he claimed. 

PML-N leader said that the UK’s National Crime Agency had kept Shehbaz’s and Suleman Shehbaz’s bank accounts frozen during its investigation into money laundering allegations. “And after 21 months, finally it gave a clean chit to Shehbaz and Suleman despite the fact that documents were sent by the government in order to ensure that both of them were convicted,” Hamza said, and added, “PML-N has borne the worst ‘political victimization’. We are through all this. But each and every court verdict has vindicated our stance,” he claimed.

He further said the question was whether people of Pakistan were happy. “Prices of all essential items such as flour, sugar and electricity have considerably gone up,” he regretted, and added when he went to different nooks and corners of the country people asked him to say to Imran that if he could not build ‘New Pakistan’, he better returned ‘Old Pakistan’ to them. 

PML-N leader said it made him laugh when the prime minister said that the roads built under the PTI government were less expensive than those built under the PML-N government. “Show me a single project you have launched,” he challenged.

He asked as to what the government had done about the creation of South Punjab province.