PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz returns to Pak after almost 4-month stay in UK

Lahore, Jan 28: Senior Vice President of the PML-N Maryam Nawaz returned to Pakistan on Saturday to lead her party in the upcoming assembly elections in Punjab province, nearly four months after she flew to London to meet her father and former premier Nawaz Sharif.

Maryam, who has been appointed as the party's chief organiser, landed at Allama Iqbal International Airport here from Abu Dhabi after a one-hour delay in her flight due to a medical emergency on the plane. "Long live Pakistan," she tweeted after her return to Pakistan.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) workers turned up in large numbers at the airport to receive their leader. Addressing the workers, Maryam, 49, said her father would soon return to Pakistan. Nawaz has been living in the UK on 'medical grounds’ since November 2019.

"Nawaz Sharif has started making preparations for his return to put the country back on the road of progress once again,” she said, without giving an exact date of her father's return.

Exuding confidence that her party would win the upcoming Punjab elections and form the government, Maryam said she would start visiting all districts of Punjab from February 1.

Elections in Punjab are due in 90 days under the Constitution after ex-premier Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party dissolved the Punjab Assembly a couple of weeks ago. Hitting out at Khan, Maryam said the time has come for him to cry and asserted that the PTI chief will never return to power.

She blamed Khan for the economic woes of the country and urged people to have faith in the federal coalition led by PML-N to steer the country out of crises. Maryam left Pakistan for London in October last year after she was acquitted in a corruption case.

At the time, she had said she was “eager” to see her father Nawaz, whom she hadn’t met since 2019. On her return to Pakistan, she told Geo News that she would utilise all her energy to strengthen the party. Earlier, party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb said Maryam was returning to begin the “reorganisation of the party”.

Maryam is likely to have a more significant role in the political happenings of the country after her appointment as the PML-N's chief organiser earlier this month. PML-N supremo Nawaz has authorised Maryam, along with Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, to lead rallies and hold meetings ahead of the upcoming elections in Punjab.

Her elevation in the party is a clear message from Nawaz to the camp led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that she, and not the incumbent premier, would succeed him, a PML-N leader from Punjab told the Dawn newspaper. “Eventually, Maryam will head the party as this is the wish of the supreme leader of PML-N (Nawaz).

The new positions, especially that of chief organiser, have already empowered her to run the affairs of the party according to her wishes. “The influence of Shehbaz Sharif and his son, Hamza Shehbaz, in party matters will diminish in the days to come. She will be the ultimate 'boss’ in the party,” the report quoted him as saying.