Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is booted from PML-N’s top echelons as the party announced the results of the intra-party elections on Friday.

“Those people, from within the party, who are talking against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, and pulling his legs, have no right to stay in the party,” PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif said at the party’s general council meeting on Friday.

“They have no right to remain in the party. [He] is working round the clock,” the party president said and claimed that the finance czar despite not caring for his health Dar was being criticised.

On February 1, 2023, Abbasi resigned as PML-N’s vice-president after PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam returned to Pakistan.

Since his decision to quit, the former PM has been active with a series of seminars organiSed under ‘Reimagining Pakistan’. He is accompanied by party mate Miftah Ismail and former PPP leader Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar.

Moreover, he has been vocal about the mishandling of the economy which has been under Ishaq Dar since the resignation of Miftah Ismail. Abbasi has called for a grand dialogue to bring the country out of the crisis.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that there are people in the PML-N who are unnecessarily critcising Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

“Those people have no right to be in the party who are taunting Dar over his policies,” he said while speaking at the General Council meeting of the PML-N in Islamabad on Friday.

Dar is working tirelessly to resolve the economic issues of Pakistan, Sharif added.

“We put our political interests at stake when we took over the government. It was a difficult decision when the inflation was skyrocketing in the country. Despite difficult times, we announced a 30% increase in the salaries in the budget,” he said.

Sharif said that he postponed the workers meeting many times hoping that Nawaz Sharif will come back to the country and he will hand over all the responsibilities to his brother.

The political landscape of the country will transform once Nawaz Sharif comes back to Pakistan, he said, adding: “I pray that Sharif comes back to Pakistan; contest elections and becomes the prime minister for the fourth time”.

PML-N’s Chief Organiser Maryam Nawaz also spoke at the occasion.

She said that after the passing of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Muslim League became a kings party. It was Nawaz Sharif who made it a peoples’ party through continuous struggle, she added.

Maryam said that the prime minister and his team have worked tremendously to provide relief to the masses.

“Pakistan was on the verge of default when the PDM took over after the vote of no-confidence last year,” she said, adding that the prime minister and the finance minister saved Pakistan from default.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has been elected unopposed as president of the PML-N, while Maryam Nawaz has been elected unopposed as the chief organiser of the party.

Both the leaders of the party were elected for a period of four years. This was announced during the meeting In Islamabad.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, while addressing the meeting, said that the PML-N has kept the same candidates who were defeated in the previous elections through rigging. “80% of our candidates are those who remained loyal to the party through thick and thin.”

After becoming the PML-N’s chief organiser, Maryam visited all the divisions, he said adding that she held meetings with party leaders and office bearers at district level.