- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Sharif made a similar remark on December 19 when he said neither India nor the US was responsible for Pakistan’s economic misery that it had shot on its own foot.
By: Shubham Ghosh
PAKISTAN’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has praised India once again saying that countries around his motherland have reached the moon but it has ‘not risen’ yet from the earth.
The 73-year-old leader, who recently returned to Pakistan in October after a long self-exile in the UK, said this while addressing cadre of his Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) in Islamabad on Wednesday (20).
The three-time prime minister who failed to complete even one term, spoke on Pakistan’s current economic hardships and said that it itself was responsible for such state of affairs.
“Our neighbours have reached the moon but we haven’t even risen from the ground so far. It can’t keep going on like this,” he said.
“We have been responsible for our own downfall, otherwise this nation would have reached a different place,” he added.
India made history in August this year by becoming the fourth nation to reach the moon and the first to land on its unexplored South Pole. Favourable reactions emerged from Pakistan over the South Asian nation’s feat even though the two neighbours share a far-from-smooth relationship.
Sharif made a similar remark on Tuesday (19) when he said neither India nor the US was responsible for Pakistan’s economic misery that it had shot on its own foot, indirectly taking a dig at the country’s powerful military establishment. In 1999, Sharif’s second stint as the prime minister came to end with a military coup staged by the late dictator, Pervez Musharraf.
He said this while interacting with the PML(N)’s aspirants for tickets for the upcoming national elections in Lahore. Sharid himself is eyeing the prime minister’s office for the fourth time.
On Wednesday, Sharif said, “In 2013, we were facing severe load shedding of electricity, we came and ended it, ended terrorism from all over the country, restored the peace of Karachi, highways were built, CPEC came, and a new era of development and prosperity began.”
As per Pakistan’s ARY News, Nawaz Sharif, pointed out that he was ousted from power three times — in 1993, 1999 and 2017.
Sharif asked, who to blame now for the present crises in Pakistan, “We shot ourselves in our foot”.
He claimed ‘fake cases’ were registered against him, his daughter Maryam and other PML-N leaders.
Sharif said Pakistan needs to prioritise women’s development if it hopes to become developed. “Every nation that has developed has prioritized women in development, they have brought women forward for development. I think that women will have to be equal participants for development, women will also have to go ahead and work in the service of this country along with men,” the veteran leader said.
Sharif also said recently that he has no interest in taking revenge against those who ousted him as the prime minister, but highlighted the need for those responsible for his ouster to be held accountable.
(With ANI inputs)
