PML-N chief vows to make Pak better than India

Islamabad, July 22 

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Shehbaz Sharif has said that people can change his name if he does not take Pakistan ahead of India after coming into power, according to a media report today.

Sharif, the PML-N prime ministerial candidate, made the remarks while addressing a rally in Sargodha district in Punjab province yesterday. He said that people can change his name if he does not take Pakistan ahead of India after coming into power, The Express Tribune reported.

“They (Indians) will come to Wahga Border and call Pakistanis their master,” 65-year-old Sharif was quoted as saying by the paper.

The former Punjab chief minister said that he would bring Pakistan at par with Malaysia and Turkey. He added that he would visit Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan “to learn from them and make Pakistan a great nation again”.

He said that Pakistan cannot become a great nation by voting leaders like Imran Khan who have made false promises to “our nation”.

“The U-turn signs should be removed from roads and should be replaced by the picture of Imran Khan,” he said, adding that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief’s politics is based on baseless allegations and false promises.

“Khan alleged corruption against the Punjab government but not a single penny has been proved against me,” the PML-N president said.

He was the chief minister of Punjab province from June 2013 to June 2018. He was elected as PML-N president in March after his elder brother Nawaz Sharif was disqualified as the party president following a Supreme Court verdict in the Elections Act 2017 case. — PTI

PTI candidate killed in suicide blast 

• A former provincial minister and senior leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was on Sunday killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up near his car in the troubled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province
• Ikramullah Gandapur, a candidate for the provincial assembly seat from PK-99 constituency, was on his way to an election meeting when the bomber targeted his vehicle in Dera Ismail Khan district
• Around the same time that Gandapur came under attack, Jamiat-Ulema-Islam-Fazl leader Akram Khan Durrani, a former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, also survived a second assassination attempt in less than 10 days

Islamist parties in fray

Milli Muslim League (MML)

• Leader: Saifullah Khalid, supported by Hafiz Saeed
• Legal status: Banned in Pakistan for its association with Hafiz Saeed, who is on a UN terror list in connection with 2008 Mumbai attacks
• Election status: Candidates registered under the name Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek are campaigning with Saeed’s image on their posters and election materials
• Candidates: 260 (73 for National Assembly and the rest for provincial assemblies)

Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ)

• Leader: Maulana Mohammad Ahmad Ludhianvi
• Legal status: Banned for being the political wing of sectarian militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been allied with Al-Qaida and Islamic State. ASWJ is another name for the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, founded in 1985, which belongs to Deobandi school of Islam 
• Election status: Candidates are running under the name of Pakistan Rah-e-Haq party, or as independents.
• Candidates: More than 150

Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP)

• Leader: Khadim Rizvi
• Legal status: Registered with Election Commission. The party emerged out of a protest movement in 2016 against the state’s execution of Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the Punjab Governor who gunned down his boss in 2011
• Election status: Candidates contesting under the TLP banner
• Candidates: 566 (178 of for National Assembly, the rest for provincial assemblies)

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)

• Leader: Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, Sirajul Haq and Allama Sajid Naqvi
• Legal status: Most of the parties in the religious alliance are are long-established and legally registered with the EC, except for the Shia Tehreek-e-Islami, which is a new name for the banned Tehreek-e-Jafria Pakistan
• Election status: Candidates from two major parties and more than a dozen small religious groups are contesting under the MMA alliance.
• Candidates: 595