Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique on Sunday said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had to pay the price for carrying out the nuclear tests in the form of exile and the division of his party into various factions.

The minister was addressing a gathering in Lahore to mark ‘Youm-i-Takbeer’ — the day when Pakistan carried out its first nuclear tests on May 28, 1998.

“Nawaz Sharif carried out the nuclear tests by utilising the power of the vote despite immense pressure from the world powers,” Rafique claimed.

Nawaz Sharif, he said, was not the first leader who was punished. “There were other prime ministers in history who were also targetted for the same reason,” he maintained.

He cited the example of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who the railways minister said was also victimised in the past. Even Benazir Bhutto had to face exile, he said.

Turning his ire to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Rafique said PTI chief Imran Khan was playing with fire. “In fact, he is cutting the same branch of the tree which he is sitting on,” he added.

The PML-N leadership has been the target of Imran Khan's derogatory remarks for years but never replied to him, he said, adding that such "amateur politicians" were, in fact, harming national politics.

The minister further claimed the PML-N was being targeted under an agenda as many people, both in the country and abroad, could not come to terms with the economic growth of the country.

It was an open secret that how many megawatts of electricity were generated in Punjab and how many in Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa during the past four years, he added.

He said peace had returned to Karachi as terrorism has been eliminated from the economic hub of the country.

The civil-military leaderships were on the same page, he added.