ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said on Sunday that due to strong political base and vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan parliamentarians from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and other opposition parties had started leaving their parties.

Addressing a press conference here, he said, “We did not try to convince them or plan any lobbing for this, but they were well aware of the future political situation and the political career of PML-N”.

Mr Chaudhry said the PTI was not involved in any grouping of PML-N, but actually their leadership was the reason behind all this. There was a fight of leadership in the PML-N and the Sharif family.

He said PML-N leader Shahbaz Sharif had resigned from all committees and just held the office of the leader of the opposition in the National Assem­bly. He claimed that no one paid attention to Shahbaz Sharif in the PML-N.

Claims country has been put on road to progress, prosperity

He said Shahbaz Sharif was not a crisis leader and that the leadership of the PML-N had been taken over by Maryam Nawaz.

He said Shahbaz Sharif had become Fazal Elahi or Rafiq Tarar now as he was nothing more than a figurehead.

The minister said that Shahbaz Sharif talked about the Charter of Economy on the floor of the National Assembly with Khawaja Asif next to him. When Maryam Nawaz rejected it, Asif Khawaja himself changed his stance to support Ms Maryam.

He claimed that Ms Maryam had snatched the PML-N’s narrative from her uncle Shahbaz Sharif. Ms Maryam was the one who ousted her own father from power, made him go to jail and took over the party leadership, he added.

The minister termed the opposition’s attitude as immature and challenged it to try to remove Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani, whom he declared the government’s candidate for the slot. They should try to do so to know how many their senators support them.

There were good news for Pakistan and bad news for the opposition. Now is the time for our country to rise as we will have a glory time that will make us remembering 1960s.

The minister said that effectual political footing, strong foreign policy and prudent economic plans of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government had put the country on right track of prosperity.

He said that the government had paid Rs9.8 billion in loans, which was more than the budget of Sindh province while the government was still striving to overcome the economic situation.

He said that the government remained successful in passing the federal budget for the year 2019-20 and started working to meet the challenges in tax collection target which was fixed at Rs5,600 billion.

The minister assured that the government will be able to improve the financial condition of the country within six months while the government also remained successful in achieving foreign policy goals.

He termed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's visit to Pakistan and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s upcoming visit to the US as a game changer. He said that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi during his visit to Brussels signed various agreements, one whole chapter was on science and technology cooperation, he added.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2019