Addressing a meeting of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) parliamentary party on Saturday, the prime minister said the province was a beautiful part of Pakistan and its people were courageous, dignified and resilient.
He said the party had played an important role in promoting democratic traditions in the province. He recalled that after the 2013 general elections, Nawaz Sharif had allowed the majority party to form the provincial government.
Shehbaz Sharif criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), saying it had spent 13 years in power in KP making slogans and grand promises. He questioned how many hospitals and universities had been built during that period, arguing that political rhetoric and division had taken priority over public service.
He said people from Peshawar and Kohistan to Hazara and the southern districts had faced problems due to a lack of attention to public needs.
The prime minister also paid tribute to the sacrifices made by the people of KP in the fight against terrorism, saying civilians, police personnel, armed forces and political leaders had all suffered significant losses. He added that Pakistan had paid a heavy human and economic price in the war against terrorism.
Recalling the previous PML-N government, Shehbaz said Nawaz Sharif’s administration had worked with the nation and state institutions to eliminate terrorism. He described the Army Public School attack in Peshawar as a deeply painful tragedy that would remain a tragic chapter in the country’s history.
He claimed terrorism had been completely eliminated by 2018, but said the country had suffered a resurgence in violence after militants were brought back from Afghanistan in 2019 and 2020. He also criticised the politics of long marches and sit-ins over the past two and a half years, alleging that the 2014 sit-in had led to the postponement of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Pakistan.
The prime minister said the visit eventually took place in 2015, when important agreements were signed. He also credited Nawaz Sharif’s government with ending prolonged power outages that had lasted up to 20 hours a day.
Shehbaz Sharif said his government had invited political stakeholders to unite against terrorism, but the offer had not been accepted.
He maintained that the decision concerning KP had been unavoidable, saying the province had to be placed under governor’s rule and an emergency had to be imposed. He also pointed out that 5,000 police positions in the province remained vacant.