News Analysis |
Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Pervaiz Rashid’s criticism of former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar on Friday has caused quite a stir inside PML-N ranks. Speculation is rife in the media as analysts and anchors discuss the appearance of rifts in PML-N’s power structure.
The spat started after Rashid took a jab at Nisar during a TV interview, stating “Decisions have been taken against us while the interior [minister] was in power; JITs were created and ‘Whatsapps’ [private messages] were also exchanged while the interior [minister] was there.”
“Don’t know why some people put the blame of their faults on the interior ministry. It seems that they are obsessed with the interior ministry and the former interior minister,”
Without providing any details, he spoke of decisions taken by the interior ministry headed by Chaudhry Nisar that went against the PML-N.
Quick in his response, Nisar issued a statement through his spokesperson, saying Rashid should have clarified as to what kind of help he expected from the interior ministry to “cover up their deeds”.
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“Don’t know why some people put the blame of their faults on the interior ministry. It seems that they are obsessed with the interior ministry and the former interior minister,” Chaudhary Nisar was quoted as saying by his spokesperson.
The former interior minister, through his spokesperson, also advised Mr. Rashid to ask “his government” to make public Dawn Leaks report, which led to Rashid’s sacking from office as information minister, to prove his innocence.
The PML-N has been intensifying its rhetoric surrounding Nawaz Sharif’s ouster by the Supreme Court, terming the decision as part of a long-running conspiracy against democracy perpetrated by the ‘establishment’.
The party’s criticism of the legacy of dictatorships as the root cause behind Nawaz’s ouster has sometimes seemed to allude to a handful of people heading state institutions as responsible for Nawaz’s ouster.
PML-N leader and Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif had made fresh appeals to other party leaders to abstain from attacking state institutions in their speeches and avoid any confrontation with organs of the state
In one instance, during his ‘homecoming’ rally from Islamabad to Lahore via the G.T road, Nawaz accused the judiciary of being complicit in the military’s toppling of his 1997 government and challenged it to hold dictators accountable the way, he said, civilian rulers are taken to task.
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In a later interview, he also said that the responsibility for creating friction between state institutions did not exclusively lie with him.
However, some party stalwarts, including Nisar and Shahbaz, have been warning against such rhetoric, with the former interior minister saying at one point that there is too much at stake for Nawaz to create a situation that might result in conflict between institutions.
Nisar on Saturday said he will address a press conference on an as yet undisclosed matter on Sunday evening.
The news accompanied media reports that PML-N leader and Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif had made fresh appeals to other party leaders to abstain from attacking state institutions in their speeches and avoid any confrontation with organs of the state.