PML-N slams Gandapur for sexist remarks, threat of violence against Maryam in AJK rally

PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday slammed Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs Ali Amin Gandapur for using “shameful language” against PML-N’s Maryam Nawaz in an election rally at Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s Kotli.

“Disgusted by the shameful language Ali Amin Gandapur has used against Maryam Nawaz. His words are not only violent but also deeply misogynist. Just imagine that people with this mindset have been given the responsibility to govern a country of 220m people,” Shehbaz tweeted.

Gandapur resorted to sexist language against PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Friday, saying she would be slapped so much that “your [real] face will be uncovered”.

Addressing an election rally in Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s Kotli, Gandapur said: “I have a lot more to say but I will only say this to her (Maryam) that if we come to slap then you will get slapped so much that your [real] face will be uncovered from the Rs80 million [cosmetic] surgery you have done from our [tax] money.”

Calling Maryam a “daku rani” (queen of thieves), the federal minister railed against her, saying, “Your grandfather’s [blacksmithing] shop in Gawalmandi didn’t have as much iron as the 32-kilogramme jewellery you were wearing when your father [PML-N supremo] Nawaz Sharif invited Modi for a wedding.”

This is not the first time that the federal minister has used sexist remarks against Maryam.

“She is beautiful but she spent millions on her surgeries from the taxpayers’ money,” he had said during a PTI rally in Gilgit-Baltistan in November 2020, adding that if he picked anyone from the crowd and spent just a little from the taxpayers’ money on their cosmetic surgeries then they would look beautiful as well.

His remarks had earned him severe criticism from opposition parties and people from different walks of life on social media.

‘Children of looters’

In his tirade against the opposition, Gandapur said the children of rulers who had “looted property” in the country were coming to AJK and “asking to form a government so they can loot more”.

He also hit out at PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, claiming that during his trip to the US “he wandered for 10 days and no one met him […] this is their status in the world.”

He called upon the people to vote for the PTI in the upcoming AJK election on July 25 and rubbished claims of attempts to rig the election, saying how could the PTI do so when the local administration and AJK prime minister belonged to the PML-N.