Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Friday said Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif was left with only two options: either to go to London or jail.
Talking to the media in Lahore, he said the Lahore’s media should analyse the witnesses and evidence by covering the court’s proceedings and evaluate whether Shehbaz was involved in money laundering or not, instead of giving coverage to his claims. The minister said Shehbaz Sharif should not worry, as the country was moving in the right direction and people fully supported Prime Minister Imran Khan-led government. He said the opposition was in a state of confusion, as first it claimed that Nawaz Sharif was returning to the country on his own; however, when the government offered them that it would bring him (Nawaz) back, then they backed off. To a question, he said the previous regimes of Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari damaged the national economy by getting huge loans, due to which now the government had to pay off these loans of $55 billion in the next two years.
It has to take loans to return the previous loans, he added. Today, even after paying off huge amounts in loans, Pakistan’s economic situation was still stable and growing, he asserted. To another query, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said that the opposition central leadership had been absconding; so how the government could hold talks with them, adding that Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz should engage in national politics but they did not want to do so.
The PPP had always played the Sindh card instead of strengthening the federation. Now the Sindh government had deprived the people of Sindh from the Sehat card, he said and added that PPP’s leadership was afraid of its own workers and was unable to face them. He said the PPP had become unpopular due to its leadership’s negative policies. That was why it could organise a public gathering even at a 10-marla space, he added. He said that victory or defeat were part of electoral process as the political leaders were answerable to people about their political efforts and commitments, adding that the PTI won elections in Sialkot and Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Earlier, the minister said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had once again expressed his commitment to the people of the country and pledged to make Pakistan a welfare state based on the principles of Riyasat-e-Medina. He said the corrupt era of previous governments had ended in Pakistan as now a people-centric government was working to put the country on the way to progress and prosperity.
He said the opposition’s central leadership did not attend the National Assembly’s proceedings while they claimed that 29 members of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had contacted the PML-N. But, in fact, the whole opposition members were in contact with the PTI and even the PML-N members did not oppose the Supplementary Finance Bill, he added. Fawad said it was an irony that PML-N’s leader and former defence minister Khwaja Asif, who was employed in an organisation in Saudi Arabia and getting salary, was telling the PTI government about the threats and challenges to national security and integrity. People have been aware about the real faces of them, he asserted.
