Pakistan elections: Maryam Sharif’s son Junaid may campaign for PML-N

With Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam lodged in Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) is planning to make the former Pakistan prime minister’s grandson Junaid Safdar join the election campaign of the party. Safdar is the son of Nawaz’s daughter Maryam.

According to a report in Pakistan-based Dawn News, Safdar is currently studying politics at a university in Britain. He reached Pakistan to Monday to meet his jailed mother, grandfather and father retired Captain Safdar.

The Dawn report quoted a senior PML-N official as saying that Junaid Safdar will address corner meetings of the party in some of the constituencies in Lahore and Rawalpindi. The leader further said that Junaid will address corner meetings in NA-127, NA-132 and NA-59 constituencies.

Apart from this, the PML-N also plans to use audio recordings of Nawaz and Maryam Sharif if they are granted bail in the case concerning Avenfield properties.

This comes a day after a letter, written by Shahbaz Sharif, claimed that Nawaz Sharif had been kept in “abysmal conditions” in the jail and was deprived of basic facilities like newspaper and bed.

The letter was written by Shahbaz to caretaker chief minister of Punjab Hasan Askari Rizvi. It came after Shahbaz, Sharif's younger brother and former chief minister of the province, visited Sharif with his family on Saturday.

"I want to draw your attention to the abysmal conditions under which Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, is languishing in the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi," he had written.

Sharif, 68, and his daughter Maryam, 44, were arrested in Lahore on July 13 on their arrival from London after an accountability court found them guilty over his family's ownership of four luxury flats in London. They were later taken to Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.