News Desk |
It seems the two major political parties – Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) – have decided to silently support and stop criticizing each other in a bid to give the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government tough time.
One example of the silent unity of the parties emerged when they both criticized the ruling party for denying a meeting between the incarcerated ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members.
On Friday, the PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb said Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government did not allow the mother and daughter of former PM Nawaz Sharif to meet him even on the third day of Eid.
The PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz was quick to slam PTI government when the news emerged that eight children died after the air-conditioning unit broke down at a government hospital in Sahiwal.
“You [PM Imran Khan] cannot hide your incompetence by not allowing Nawaz Sharif to meet his family. He [Nawaz Sharif] developed billions of rupees worth projects but nobody could allege that he had misappropriated even a single penny,” Marriyum said.
The former information minister said PM Imran Khan fully enjoyed the Eid celebrations but did not allow the former premier, who has been incarcerated in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail since December last year, to meet his family even on Eid’s last day.
PPP’s Murad Ali Shah Deplores Government Move
Meanwhile, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah deplored that former PM Sharif was not allowed to meet his daughter and other family members on Eid in jail. While speaking to the media in Sehwan on Wednesday, he said prisoners are allowed to meet their families on Eid days. “This didn’t even happen during dictatorships what has been done to Maryam Nawaz,” he lamented.
Read more: Sindh Government finally goes after quacks
Responding to a question about the arrest of Zardari and his sister, MPA Faryal Talpur, Shah said he was unaware about the arrest of party leadership or any other big names. “But I know very well that the people of Pakistan have been arrested by inflation,” he said.
For the first time in Pakistan, he said, two Eids were celebrated, including one by the federal government and the other by the KPK government. He contended that differences between PTI’s central and KPK chapters were made evident by that development.
Maryam Keeps Mum on HIV Outbreak in Sindh
Earlier, the PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz was quick to slam PTI government when the news emerged that eight children died after the air-conditioning unit broke down at a government hospital in Sahiwal.
When asked about Maryam Nawaz’s silence on the issue, Marriyum Aurangzeb told the paper, “She [Maryam] is very touchy about children but this HIV outbreak must have skipped her mind”.
However, in a bid to avoid annoying PPP with whom the PML-N plans to run an anti-government campaign in the coming days, Maryam has kept her silence over the worst outbreak of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Sindh that has affected over 700 people, the majority of whom are children.
On June 2, the media had reported, eight newborn babies died at the District Headquarters Hospital in Sahiwal after an air conditioning (AC) unit broke down. The Express Tribune had reported that the hospital sources said five babies died a natural death, while three lost their lives apparently due to staff’s negligence after the air conditioning system in the children’s ward stopped working.
On the other hand, the scale of the HIV outbreak in Sindh not only shocked the entire country but also got the attention of World Health Organization (WHO), which has sent its team of experts to root out the cause of the disease and assist the provincial government in dealing with the crisis.
Read more: Maryam slams PTI over Sahiwal incident, keeps mum on HIV outbreak…
Surprisingly, Maryam, who is otherwise active on social media, did not say a single word. Apparently, she has turned a blind eye to the recent HIV outbreak in Ratodero, Larkana, which has remained a winning district for the PPP since past few decades.
Political analysts say that Maryam’s silence over the tragedy might be the effect of the recent Iftar dinner hosted by the PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the capital. She is making her re-entry into the political arena after the suspension of her sentence in the Avenfields Apartments reference, they said, without hitting the political nerve center of PPP.
‘HIV Outbreak Must have Skipped her Mind’: Maryam Aurangzeb
Shocking as it may seem, the PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb while talking to The Express Tribune had said that she condemns the negligence that led to the worst outbreak of HIV in Larkana and that whoever is responsible should be taken to task.
The paper noted that it is quite flabbergasting that on the one hand PML-N holds Prime Minister Imran Khan responsible for governance failure not only on the federal level but also in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Punjab the party has not even once been vocal about the sheer negligence of PPP in the interior Sindh that has ruined the lives of so many innocent people.
Read more: The Rise of HIV positive cases in Larkana: Where is the…
When asked about Maryam Nawaz’s silence on the issue, Marriyum Aurangzeb told the paper, “She [Maryam] is very touchy about children but this HIV outbreak must have skipped her mind”.