LAHORE: PML-N Punjab President Rana Sanaullah has said that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s main focus is to target the opposition and media and not Covid-19.

Had Imran Khan and his advisers paid full attention to their fight against coronavirus it would not have spread in the country with this speed,” Sanaullah said in a statement here on Saturday.

He said Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid had been speaking ill of the PML-N leadership at the behest of Imran Khan. He said Rashid was responsible for over 100 train accidents during his tenure but no inquiry report had come to fore in this regard so far.

“Targeting Shahbaz Sharif over the issue of Covid-19 will not help develop national unity on this serious matter,” he warned.

The former law minister, who has been on bail in a narcotics case, further said the PML-N leaders could give a befitting response to Imran Khan and his ‘paid’ spokespersons on the Covid-19 debacle but the party leadership had stopped them.

Sanaullah said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government had failed in providing kits and other safety gear to the medical staff who were busy fighting the virus. Even the international media had been exposing the government in this respect. “The government must wake up to this fact that provision of protective kits to doctors, nurses and paramedical staff is its responsibility which it cannot escape,” he said.

Meanwhile PML-N Punjab information secretary Azma Bokhari said despite lockdown the government could not control the prices of essential items that showed its poor governance.

She said Imran Khan was particular about introducing steps to provide relief to his ‘ATMs’ but had not taken any measures to control the prices of basic items like flour, sugar and oil.

Ms Bokhari said the way doctors and nurses were contracting coronavirus it showed that the medical staff had not been provided with personal protective equipment (PPE) to save themselves from the deadly virus.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2020