Not easy to bring Pakistan back on track, says former PM Nawaz Sharif

Peshawar, Jan 22 (PTI) Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party supremo Nawaz Sharif on Monday said it would not be an easy task to bring Pakistan's economy back on track.

Nawaz's remarks come as major political parties, including Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), PML-N and others have ramped up their electioneering activities with party leaders taking the helm of their respective election campaigns in their bid to woo the nation of 240 million who will elect their representatives on February 8.

Addressing a rally in Mansehra, a city in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan from where the three-time prime minister is contesting on NA-15, Nawaz said that Pakistan has fallen behind the world and that the country has to be "rebuilt".

Reflecting on his previous tenure as the country's chief executive, Nawaz underscored that not only his government had restricted the dollar to 104 — against the Pakistani rupee — but had also "eliminated" the load shedding from the cash-strapped country, Dawn News reported.

Without taking any names, Nawaz also fired a fresh salvo against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its founder Imran Khan — PML-N's arch-foe and staunch critic — and lamented that the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) fell and voted for this "liar".

Recalling the 2013 elections, Nawaz said that Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had approached him on forming a coalition government in KP, however, he decided against it in favour of respecting PTI's right to form the government due to their numbers.

"I ask the people of KP, what did they [PTI] do during their 10-year rule," the PML-N supremo said while taking a jibe at the party that ruled the province from 2013 till January 2023.

"These people have ruined this province," he added.

Promising to address rampant inflation, Nawaz reassured that, if voted into power, his government would ensure the creation of jobs and would see that Mansehra gets its airport.

He also said universities and colleges will be set up in the area.

Sharif, a three-time former Pakistan Prime Minister who in October last year returned from a self-imposed exile in London to lead his PML-N party in the general elections, is seeking a fourth term in the February 8 elections. PTI