LAHORE: Federal Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry has said former premier and PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif has no principled stand on the Pakistan Army and he is attacking the state institutions for why the army and the judiciary are not helping him to protect his money stashed abroad.

Mr Chaudhry told reporters on Saturday the PML-N leaders were unable to find a way out. “When the Pakistan Army, the judiciary and the general public are against Nawaz Sharif, how he will be able to do politics in Pakistan?” he said.

He said Mr Sharif had appointed Gen Asif Nawaz Janjua as the COAS but his relations went sour with him and so was the case with Gen Waheed Kakar, Gen Jahangir Karamat, Gen Pervaiz Musharraf and Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa. “If every COAS went against Nawaz Sharif, the fault lies with him and not the army,” he said.

Calling Gen Bajwa a kind-hearted man, he said if Mr Sharif could not get along with Gen Bajwa, he would not be able to get along with any other COAS.

The federal minister said the PTI government appreciated the role of the army and the judiciary despite the fact that the judiciary was hurling statements against the PTI government like it had no capacity to rule the country and its accountability process was not appropriate. “But we don’t react,” he said. Mr Chaudhry said Prime Minister Khan was the only politician in the country who never became part of any martial law government and continued struggle for 22 years, while staying out of corridors of power.

Mr Chaudhry said PML-N workers were patriotic Pakistanis and they did not like Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the opposition MPC because he targeted the Pakistan Army, judiciary and the Election Commission of Pakistan.

He said he hoped PML-N workers would distance themselves from the Sharif family and form their own Muslim League and claimed a serious debate was already going on within the PML-N to change the leadership.

Since the court will get arrested opposition leader in National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif, Mr Chaudhry asked whether the judiciary was also against the PML-N leadership.

Mr Chaudhry said Pakistan was importing everything when the first coronavirus patient was reported in Pakistan on Feb 26 and now his ministry was able to produce 1,100 ventilators on a monthly basis and exported them to France. Similarly, he said, Pakistan prepared high-grade masks and sanitizers that were being exported to France and Belgium, respectively.

Hoping that the vaccine against coronavirus will be available in Pakistan early next year, the federal minister said the government was now setting up a medical industry zone in Faisalabad. He said two big units being installed to develop syringes to be used in the coronavirus vaccine.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2020