LAHORE: As PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is scheduled to visit Nawaz Sharif in Kot Lakhpat jail on Monday (today), an adviser to the Punjab chief minister met the PML-N supremo on Sunday to extend more healthcare facilities to the incarcerated former prime minister.

The move is being seen by analysts as an apparent bid to avert both the opposition parties from coming closer.

The PPP chairman is quoted as saying at the party meeting here on Sunday that his visit is on humanitarian grounds and has nothing to do with politics. “I’ve no political agenda for the meeting. Nawaz Sharif Sahib is unwell and deserves suitable treatment facilities.”

Party’s Punjab president Qamar Zaman Kaira, however, says that discussion on political issues cannot be ruled out when two noted political leaders meet.

“When the country is passing through such a critical situation, it’s impossible that politicians won’t exchange their views on it.” But, he clarifies it doesn’t mean that they’re carrying any political agenda for the meeting.

Responding to a query, he says he doesn’t know if Mr Bilawal will offer any advice to Mr Sharif like his treatment at the Sindh government’s flagship health facility NICVD or not.

Mr Kaira says that Co-Chairperson Asif Ali Zardari is, however, not going to visit Mr Sharif and those accompanying Bilawal will be he himself (Kaira), Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, Jameel Soomro and Hassan Murtaza.

He also refutes reports that the PPP is thinking on convening a multi-party conference.

Meanwhile, the Punjab government reportedly sprang into action on Sunday as CM’s adviser Shahbaz Gill visited the PML-N leader in the jail and offered him provision of the best possible healthcare in the country. He also reportedly carried a letter of a senior government official for the high-profile prisoner in this respect.

Mr Sharif was quoted to have sought some time for responding to the letter.

Mr Gill was not available for comments.

Two cardiologists, Nadeem Malik and Saqib Shafi, also accompanied Mr Gill and they examined Mr Sharif, suggested some changes in the medicines being given to him.

They also prescribed him exercise for which Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has reportedly agreed to provide a special cycling machine.

The government has already set up a health unit at the prison as per demand of Mr Sharif’s daughter Maryam and three cardiologists will remain available in different shifts.

The former prime minister is serving a seven-year term in a corruption case at the Kot Lakhpat jail. Suffering from complicated heart and kidney problems, he has refused to be shifted to any hospital outside the jail saying the government is only humiliating him by taking him to [irrelevant] hospitals, setting up medical boards one after another but not acting upon the advice given by the boards.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2019