Imran mocks PML-N for ‘advertising prayers for ailing PM’

Sharif family ruling the country like a kingdom, says PTI chairman

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman has sarcastically sympathised with members of the ruling party who were ‘squandering their hard-earned money’ on advertising their prayers for their leader Nawaz Sharif, who is currently recuperating at a London hospital after an open-heart surgery.

Imran Khan says he is not upset with the appeals for prayers for Nawaz, but he is concerned with the style of governance of the Sharif family which, according to him, is ruling the country like a kingdom.



“Nawaz Sharif had a two-thirds majority [in 1999] but people did not agitate when the then army chief, Gen Pervez Musharraf, toppled his government in a coup,” Imran said, insinuating that the Sharif family did not enjoy public support.

Speaking to a select group of journalists at his Bani Gala residence, the PTI chairman censured the government’s strategy in the wake of the prime minister’s illness. Had this happened in some Western country, they would have replaced their prime minister, but “here the Sharif family is clinging onto power”, he added.

Imran always talks about the benefits of democracy and ills of status quo, but his party’s contribution to improvement of the system makes him think before responding to questions on the subject.



“There is nothing to do in parliament,” he said when The Express Tribune asked him if he had concerns about the legitimacy of the federal or provincial legislatures which, according to him, had been set up through a rigged election as he had attended the National Assembly for a mere 17 times in the last three years.

On the Panamagate scandal, he warned his party would start street agitation if revelations in the Panama leaks were not properly investigated.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2016.