LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President and former prime minister Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has said that independent candidates backed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) can form a government in the Centre if they have the required number of seats in the National Assembly. 'If PTI-sponsored candidates can show majority [in the National Assembly] then they are welcome to form a government,' he said while addressing a press conference in Lahore on Tuesday. The PML-N president said his party is ready to sit in opposition if PTI-backed candidates can establish their majority in the lower house of parliament. "We will accept them [PTI government] happily if they fail to [form government] then we will use our Constitutional and legal right," the PML-N president said. He said the PML-N has a majority in Punjab and his party is the largest in Centre in terms of party. "We now have 80 members after independents joined our party," he said adding that more independent lawmakers will join the PML-N i n the coming days. Despite PML-N failing to secure a majority in the elections, Shehbaz said supremo Nawaz Sharif is still the party's candidate for the post of prime minister. 'I am still standing by [my words] that Nawaz Sharif will become the prime minister for the fourth time,' he added. The PML-N president said his party will invite everyone to form a coalition government in the Centre. 'We have to move forward together in the country's larger interest.' Shehbaz Sharif rejected the allegations that the polls were manipulated in favour of his party and recalled that his party members faced intimidation and false cases during the tenure of Imran Khan-led government. Acknowledging that independent candidates had garnered more votes, he said, 'If you count independent candidates, then obviously their number is greater. You cannot dispute the facts. But in political parties, the PML-N is number one, followed by the PPP and so on and so forth.' He further said that since the results of the polls had been released, it was now time to move onto to the 'next phase'. 'If independent candidates, who call themselves PTI sponsored or non-PTI sponsored, if they can form a government then go ahead. The president will not give them an invitation,' he said. 'If independent candidates, who call themselves PTI sponsored, […] if they can show a majority, then we will gladly sit in opposition benches and play our constitutional role,' he said. 'But if they cannot, then other political parties have the right to form a government,' he said. 'That is the legal and democratic way to do things.' 'We need to move forward like this and finalise the upcoming phase,' he said. 'All political factions need to put their differences aside and join hands to help tackle the challenges, of which Pakistan has several,' he added. Commenting on allegations of rigging by political parties, he asked: 'In which elections have there not been rigging allegations?' Shehbaz said that on election night, on the basis of a mere 10-12 per cent of results, there was a 'one-sided' declaration that independents were winning and parties were losing, which was 'inappropriate'. 'On one hand there are allegations of rigging [but] then independents are winning and we are losing. This is contradictory,' he said. He noted that when PTI came to power in 2018, his party did not hold long marches, protest the results or call for civil disobedience. Rather, they worked dutifully as the opposition for the betterment of Pakistan, he said. He further commented that despite political differences, the opposition was more than willing to meet with then-prime minister Imran Khan on several issues, including on Kashmir and Covid-19, but alleged that Imran 'made every effort to avoid meeting'. He further noted that his government was the one to 'save democracy in Pakistan'. When asked about the possibility of a new deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he said: 'Let there be no doubt about it, given the point where our economy is at the moment, we will have to go for another IMF package and without delay, whether [it is] a coalition or some other arrangement.' He further stated that during the tenure of the Pakistan Democratic Movement, he made utmost efforts to decrease corruption. In a response to questions regarding inducting 'turncoats' into the PML-N, Shehbaz said PTI hurled abuses at his party during its election campaign. 'Despite that, Nawaz Sharif said that PTI-backed independents should be given their constitutional right to form a government if they want to'. 'But if people want to join the PML-N out of their own will, what is the problem in that?' he asked.