Lost mother & wife to politics, Nawaz Sharif. “I lost my mother and wife to politics,” former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said on Saturday, getting visibly emotional as he described how he faced the news of their deaths during his imprisonment. Sharif was addressing a mammoth rally at Minar-e-Pakistan here this evening soon after he returned earlier to Pakistan ending the four years of self-imposed exile in the UK.

Claiming that after seeing the love of the party followers gathered at the rally he has forgotten his “grief and pain”, the 73-year-old Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo said, “Even if I don’t want to remember, there are some wounds that can’t heal ever.”

In an almost emotionally choked voice, he said he had lost his mother and wife “to politics” and recalled how he couldn’t pay the final respects to either his mother, father or wife.

“My wife Kulsoom was counting her last moments. I requested them (the jail authorities) to allow a call to speak with her. I am telling you of the time I was in Adiala jail. For two-and-a-half hours I kept requesting them but they did not allow it. And finally, broke the news of her death to me,” Sharif said and looked at his daughter Maryam, sharing the stage with her uncle Shehbaz and other party leaders.

“They told me they would break the news (of Kulsoom’s death) to Maryam but I said no. Imagine, how can she and others take that when they are all alone.”

Kulsoom died in 2018 at the age of 70 in London while both Sharif and daughter Maryam were serving jail terms in Pakistan in corruption cases.

Earlier in the afternoon, Sharif, who had spent the last four years in London, reached Islamabad from Dubai. After completing legal formalities in connection with his bail, he headed for Lahore, PML-N’s bastion in Punjab.

Atomic bomb launch

Referring to Pakistan’s nuclear tests on May 28, 1998, the former premier said that then-United States president Bill Clinton and other world leaders pressured him not to conduct tests.

“There will be record present in the Foreign Office that Bill Clinton offered me $5 billion in 1999 for not carrying out nuclear tests, but my conscience did not allow me to accept the thing which was against Pakistan’s favour,” he claimed.

“If someone else would have been in my place, could he have said this in front of the American president,” he added.

Nawaz Sharif maintained that they conducted the nuclear tests and gave India a befitting response.

“Are our [PML-N] governments toppled down and verdicts are issued against us for refusing the US and taking stance for the interest of Pakistan?,” he asked.

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Inflation

Speaking of the inflation, the former premier compared how roti and petrol’s costs way higher today than when he was in power. “Was I ousted for this reason? It was said that Nawaz Sharif was ousted for not taking salary from his son,” he said.

“You are the public, you tell, do you agree with such decision?” he asked the charged crowd at Minar-e-Pakistan jalsa.

He further said that no one in Pakistan would be unemployed if his party was allowed to continue the “1990s economic model”.

Unfortunately, he said, today, the condition are so bad that one has to think if they can feed their children or pay electricity bills. “People are committing suicide, and borrowing money to pay the bills.”

“During my tenure, the poor had enough financial resources to at least to seek healthcare and get himself treated,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, Nawaz Sharif clarified that these tough economic conditions weren’t created during the Shehbaz-led government but traced back to a long time.

“During our tenure sugar was 50 rupees per kilogram, today it is at 250,” he said, adding: “Pakistan was on its way to becoming an Asian tiger, we were preparing to ensure Pakistan’s inclusion in the G20.”