ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information Firdous Ashiq Awan on Saturday said that by calling the proposed charter of economy a “joke”, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz “had made fun of her own uncle [Shehbaz Sharif]”.
The idea of a charter of economy has been proposed by both the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and PML-N.
In a fiery press conference earlier in the day, ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz had termed the ‘meesaaq-e-maeeshat’ (charter of economy) as a mazaaq-i-maeeshat (joke of an economy), adding that there can be no agreement with the current government “that stole the people’s mandate”.
“Shehbaz sahib has a lot more political and administrative experience than me… He must definitely have considered things that I am unable to see when he talked about [signing a] Charter of Economy,” she had said.
Awan, in her counter press conference, went on to say that Maryam should “also have demanded that Shehbaz Sharif resign from his post (as the party’s president)”.
Moving on to Maryam’s “hue and cry” regarding Nawaz Sharif’s purportedly rapid decline of health in prison, Awan said that “had Maryam been a qualified medical doctor, she wouldn’t have polticised her father’s health the way she has been”.
She said Maryam was “a woman who entered the medical profession but (got sidetracked and) got involved in ‘extracurricular activities'”.
Awan said that after today, Maryam must have cast doubt into the minds of certified cardiologists and physicians the world over regarding their qualifications.
She said that the opposition repeatedly blames the government for playing a game of politics over Nawaz Sharif’s health but today “their princess has not only herself politicised the matter by reading out the reports, but has confirmed the fact that if in Pakistan’s jails all the prisoners are tested, 90 per cent of all those who are above 60 will be seen to have far worse ailments.”
“Today through those reports she has once more made it evident that she has raised a hue and cry on the name of medical relief before as well which had no relation to truth then and today too, Mian Nawaz Sharif does not suffer from pain in his heart, but he and you ‘mohtarma’ suffer from the pain of (wanting) power,” said Awan.
“You (both) are rolling around in that pain and Mian Nawaz Sharif is also pained by the fact that in the opposition his brother cannot be seen standing with his (Nawaz’s) viewpoint.
“So this is the pain that was reflected (in your statements) today,” she said addressing Maryam.
