Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the former prime minister and senior vice president of the PML-N, has resigned from his party position after Maryam Nawaz’s appointment as senior vice president and chief organizer.
According to a report in the local daily ‘The News,’ Abbasi claimed that he had “stepped down from the party office within an hour of the announcement” of Maryam Nawaz’s promotion to senior vice president position chief organizer.
In the same report, he said he would “continue to stay with the PML-N until death.”.
However, the PML-N leader’s spokesperson refuted the comments in a statement, insisting that “Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is [still] the party’s senior vice president.”.
On the other hand, Abbasi’s resignation as the party’s vice president was confirmed on Wednesday by PML-N leader and Nawaz Sharif spokesperson Mohammad Zubair.
Zubair told reporters in Lahore, “He has resigned from the post, but he is a party worker and a senior leader, so I don’t think resigning from the post will affect his stature.”.
He continued by saying that because of Abbasi’s professional background and political acumen, the PML-N “needed” him.
Maryam Nawaz, who returned to Pakistan after a four-month vacation in London, launched her nationwide election campaign. The timing of the rumors surrounding Abbasi’s resignation coincides with this.
Along with other politically astute leaders, such as the former finance minister Miftah Ismail, the former senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, and the former chief minister of Balochistan Aslam Raisani, Abbasi has been holding seminars and press conferences over the past few weeks under the banner of “Reimagining Pakistan.”.
Abbasi previously denied rumors that he intended to leave the PML-N in an interview with Shahzeb Khanzada on Geo News, claiming to have seen the same rumors on social media, which had become very popular following the seminars.