LAHORE: Maryam Nawaz on Tuesday said the Christian community has lent huge support to her father and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
“My Christian brothers and sisters are as zealous in their support as other Pakistanis,” she said while addressing the minorities’ wing convention in NA-120 in Lahore.
“Your leader (Nawaz Sharif) believes you are Pakistanis, and not a minority,” she said, insisting that her father doesn’t believe in the concept of minorities.
The former prime minister’s daughter, who is campaigning in the NA-120 constituency on behalf of her mother and PML-N’s candidate for the seat Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, said she was happy to see the enthusiasm of her ‘Christian brothers and sisters’ in the support that they’ve lent to the party.
She visited the St Anthony’s Church in Lahore on September 1 and said that the Convent of Jesus and Mary played a huge part in where she stands today in life.
Maryam also expressed pride at the appointment of the first Christian finance minister and said she was “personally very happy” at the ‘angel of Pakistan’s Christian community’ — Dr Ruth Pfao — being honoured with a state funeral.
In the aggressive by-poll campaign for the NA-120 constituency that the PML-N has launched, Maryam has time and again insisted that her father’s case was in the public’s court.
During her campaign speeches to different members of the constituency, she reiterated that it was imperative that the country’s system — through which “dictators such as Pervez Musharraf have become more powerful than the judiciary” — must be changed.
The by-polls for the NA-120 seat, which was left vacant after Nawaz’s disqualification by the Supreme Court on July 28, will be held on September 17. A total of 44 candidates will contest the NA-120 by-polls.
Published in Daily Times, September 13th 2017.
