ISLAMABAD, July 21: Interior minister Chaudhry Nisar will address an important press conference on Sunday at 5pm, his Twitter handle said on Friday. The interior minister was also absent from Friday’s urgent meeting of PML-N members called by the premier himself. A spokesman for the ministry says Nisar has been avoiding party meetings due to health problems. “I am not sure for how many days he would not be assuming his duties,” the spokesperson had said
days ago.
Contrary to the spokesman’s remarks, however, there are media reports which suggest Nisar has developed differences with the ruling party. Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb even dismissed reports the minister had decided to resign.
In the past, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had left his official work citing bad health and had stayed in London for many weeks following his differences with the party when he was the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly during the last PPP government.
The rifts between Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, one of the close aides to the prime minister in the past and senior leader of the PML-N, and some other cabinet members of the ruling party came into the open last Saturday.
On Saturday night, Nisar issued a strong-worded rebuttal to the remarks of Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal – who had criticised his colleague in a private TV channel programme.
“The government minister [Ahsan] should avoid giving wrong and irrational statements over the speech of [the] interior minister made in [Thursday’s] cabinet meeting,” a spokesperson of the minister had said.
“Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan never made the statement in the cabinet meeting, which is being attributed to him by the minister,” said spokesperson Aslam Shahid. Nisar, in the cabinet meeting had advised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif against getting swayed by the opinion of the appeasers and avoid a clash with other state institutions including the judiciary and the military on the Panama Papers issue.-Agencies
