Former Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif has taken a fresh dig at Prime Minister Imran Khan, saying the cricketer-turned politician is called a "puppet" leader in India, as he was installed by the powerful military in 2018. Sharif, who is presently in London getting treatment for a heart condition, attended, via video link, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's (PML-N) general meeting held in Lahore on Thursday.
"In India, Imran Khan is called a 'puppet' and in the United States it is said that he [Imran] has powers even less than that of a mayor. This is because the world knows how he has been brought to power. Imran has not come into power by the votes of the people but with help of [the] military establishment," the three-time former premier said.
Sharif, 71, convicted in two corruption cases in Pakistan, has been living in London since November 2019 after the Lahore High Court granted him permission to go abroad for four weeks for medical treatment.
Earlier at the party meet, Sharif took swipes at Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and former ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed for "imposing a puppet government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)" through a rigged general election in 2018.
Pakistan's main opposition party has demanded resignation of Prime Minister Imran Khan for allegedly defaming the country and its political parties only to hide his own corruption at a time when foreign dignitaries were in the capital to attend a high-profile international summit.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said that Khan-led government had already completed more than three years of its term, but it seemed that he had been suffering from "Sharif family phobia" as he kept on mentioning their names all the time, instead of highlighting his own achievements, Dawn newspaper reported.
Marriyum, who had served as information minister during the previous PML-N government, said that despite keeping Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif in jail for over a year on fictitious charges, imprisoning PML-N leaders in death row cells, abusing power and weaponising and misusing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigative Agency (FIA) and every national institution, Khan could not prove a single penny of corruption on the PML-N leadership.
She said the PTI government and its rented touts had already been embarrassed by the courts because they had never produced any evidence to back their false cases.
"Imran Khan and his mafias usurped trillions of rupees in corruption but none of them were held accountable under this government that pledged to be the so-called flag-bearer of anti-corruption, she said, alleging that the prime minister was helping these mafias and cartels because they were running his home and everyday expenses.
The former minister alleged that Khan, a cricketer-turned-politician, was clearly and directly involved in every single one of the corruption acts that robbed the nation.
Calling Prime Minister Khan the most corrupt leader in the country's history, she alleged that he was the only one to facilitate corruption institutionally.