Maryam Nawaz comes up with 'new solution' to skyrocketing inflation

• Maryam urges people to vote for PML-N on February 8.
• She vows to change fate of Pakistan if voted to power. 
• PML-N leader wants “intruders” thrown out of Lahore.

Giving a 'solution' to decades-high inflation being faced by the poverty-stricken countrymen, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz Tuesday claimed the faster the votes are cast in favour of the lion — the electoral symbol of her party — the faster the tsunami of inflation would end.

The PML-N leader — who kicked off her party’s election campaign a day earlier — came up with the “new solution” while addressing a corner meeting during her visit to the PP-159 constituency of Lahore.

Data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics showed the country’s consumer price index (CPI) for December 2023 rose 29.7% from a year before.

Around 241 million people experienced its highest-ever inflation in 2023, with its currency dipping to historic lows until a $3 billion International Monetary Fund bailout package averted an imminent sovereign default in July last year.

Recalling the "development, infrastructure, and mass transit projects" launched by the former governments of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shehbaz Sharif, Maryam said that her party made new records of “service” in Lahore and urged the masses to vote for them on February 8.

Firing a fresh salvo at the Imran Khan-founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), she said that the party abandoned Lahore and urged the masses to throw the “intruders” out of the city on election day.

The PML-N vice president vowed to change the fate of Lahore, Punjab, and Pakistan if her party is voted to power.

Addressing another gathering at a reception camp in Lahore’s Nishtar Colony, the three-time former prime minister’s daughter urged the people to vote for PML-N in the forthcoming polls, pawing the way for Nawaz to return to power for another term.

“I seek your permission to contest the election from PP 159. Nawaz Sharif laid the foundation stone of Nishtar Colony and I will lay the foundation of modern Nishtar Colony.”

She further said that her party would resume the development of Lahore, which she said remained stalled during the past five years.

The PML-N stalwart promised that she would serve the masses by staying in the field during the next 5 years if her party is voted to power.

— Additional input from Reuters