Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Vice President Maryam Nawaz sparred over the issue of neutrality of institutions in the wake of the opposition’s no-confidence motion filed against Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Talking to reporters after appearing in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) for hearing of her appeal against her conviction in the Avenfield reference, Maryam mocked the prime minister, who had been an ardent proponent of neutral umpires in the game of cricket.
However, the information minister fired a broadside against the opposition for a “malicious campaign” against National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser and the Pakistan Army. He stressed that institutions stood by the government as required by the Constitution.
In his separate tweets, Chaudhry lashed out at dissident lawmakers, who walked out of the ruling party’s folds, saying that they should be punished like “traitors”. He added that the disgruntled ministers had not just shunned their loyalties but “stabbed in the country’s back”.
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“They [the dissidents] deserved the kind of punishment given to the traitors, the minister said. “The disgruntled ministers should be punished as they were not only the party traitors but were unfaithful to the country too,” he added.
Referring to the government’s presidential reference in the SC after several of its lawmakers were found at the Sindh House in Islamabad, the minister said that the Supreme Court had the opportunity to do away with the rampant horse-trading, opportunism, and corruption in the country.
The minister also slammed the opposition for a “malicious campaign” against Speaker Asad Qaiser and the Pakistan Army. “It has been noticed that some social media accounts belonging to PML-N were maligning the Pakistan Army by changing their display with that of the PTI logo,” he claimed.
The minister said that those who dreamt of creating a wedge between the Pakistan Army and the government should know that the PTI was not the PML-N which hatched a conspiracy against the institution on petty issues, he added.
“Prime Minister Imran Khan and the armed forces are such a combination which brought stability and progress to Pakistan.” The institutions, Fawad Chaudhry added, stood by the government as required by the Constitution.
At her media talk, Maryam Nawaz said that the PTI was breaking up and that it was game over for Prime Minister Imran. She added that no country needed to conspire against the prime minister, because he had fallen prey to his own arrogance.
“Imran Khan! Your game is over now. If you had thought about the prices of ghee, flour, sugar, petrol, you would not have faced the situation you are in now, she said,” adding: “No country needs to conspire against Imran Khan. Imran Khan is enough to conspire against himself.”
She said that word ‘neutral’ was much talked about these days. “This word has rattled someone,” she continued. [Imran’s] 22 years of [political] struggle have come to an end because of the word ‘neutral’,” she said. “I haven’t seen even a tonga party in such a pathetic condition,” she added.
“If someone is not ready to complete the numbers [required to defeat the no-confidence motion] for you, you call them animals,” she further said. “Being neutral is to abide by the Constitution [and] if someone is talking about the Constitution, there is no need to writhe like a fish out of water.”
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About the PTI dissidents, she said that the prime minister was calling the disgruntled party elements turncoats and also saying that he would forgive them. “Why to buy those who are already leaving Imran,” she asked. “The opposition does not need to buy anyone”.
While responding to a question, Maryam said that PML-N President and Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif would be the party’s candidate for the post of prime minister, if the opposition’s no-confidence motion against the prime minister succeeded.
Referring to the opposition’s criticism of the speaker’s decision to call the National Assembly session on no-confidence motion on March 25, instead of their demand for March 21, Maryam said that the “punishment for not understanding and disobeying the Constitution” is Article 6.”
Meanwhile, talking to the media outside the Supreme Court alongside Energy Minister Hammad Azhar and Adviser to the Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan, Fawad Chaudhry backed Speaker Asad Qaiser’s decision of calling the session on March 25.
“What’s the harm in it if the session is convened on March 25 instead of March 22,” he questioned, saying that a motion was adopted by the National Assembly on January 21 to allow the exclusive use of its chamber for the 48th session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) foreign ministers.
Fawad came down hard on the opposition for “campaigning against the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) taking place in Islamabad from Tuesday (today), saying that the opposition had “surpassed India and Israel in the campaign against the OIC meeting”.
“It has been observed that [Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDM) President] Fazlur Rehman and his so-called alliance are making more efforts than India and Israel to sabotage the OIC-CFM,” he said. He termed Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s threats of disrupting the OIC moot shameful.
Fazl should be asked what he had done for the cause of Islam, Chaudhry said, while highlighting the prime minister’s efforts that led to the adoption of a resolution in the United Nations for designation of March 15 as an “International Day to combat the Islamophobia”.
Fawad asserted that Prime Minister Imran Khan has stood firm in the face of opposition’s threats and would foil their every bid against him and his government. “It is not the first time that Imran Khan is facing such challenges in his life… he always emerges victorious in such situations.”
LIVE #APPNews : Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting @fawadchaudhry along with Advisor for Parliamentary Affairs @BabarAwanPK and Minister for Energy @Hammad_Azhar talks to media #Islamabad https://t.co/XfXCMDhoJj
— APP 🇵🇰 (@appcsocialmedia) March 21, 2022
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