Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party member and former Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in a public meeting, raised the past to question Maryam Nawaz’s leadership, citing his and Nawaz Sharif’s speeches against the late Benazir Bhutto.

Recalling the time the party was part of Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), the estranged PML-N leader said that he and Nawaz Sharif gave speeches against former Prime Minister and archrival Benazir Bhutto, saying that a woman cannot be a leader or a ruler in an Islamic society.

Admitting that he too used to say the same things in speeches, Nisar said, “A woman cannot give the azaan, a woman cannot lead prayer congregations, a woman cannot speak in a loud voice so as not to be heard by a non-mahram and she cannot perform Umrah or Hajj without a man.”

RELATED STORIES

Further questioning the present day scenario where Nawaz Sharif’s daughter is now the Senior Vice-president of the party, Nisar asked that if all that was said in the speeches was pertinent for Benazir Bhutto, then why aren’t the same objections applicable on Maryam Nawaz.

Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, bitter political rivals in the late 1980s and 1990s, ended their animosity to join hands to bring down General Pervez Musharraf’s government by signing the Charter of Democracy in May, 2006.