- Presser will kill or confirm rumours of his departure from the party
- Saad Rafiq says Nisar will stay put, back the party
An air of will-he-won’t-he mystery has surrounded interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan amid reports of a couple of senior party leaders trying to persuade the former to not take a “decision adverse to the party.”
Sources within the ruling party told Pakistan Today that the aforementioned senior party leaders met with him to convince him to call off the press conference that he had scheduled for Sunday (today) but also added that the interior minister refused to budge from his position.
Party leaders, however, are still maintaining that there is no discord. In a social media message, railways minister Saad Rafique tweeted that Nisar has a 32-year-long relationship with the PML(N) and Nawaz Sharif and he would never leave the party at such a juncture. “He was with us, he is with us and would also remain with us in the future as well,” he said.
“He would be in the forefront to defend the party and the evil designs of the opponents would fail,” he said.
Sources, on the condition of anonymity, said that this is all an attention-seeking gimmick. “You know he is an attention seeker and he always keeps staging such stunts to attract the media and the party. In the past, whenever he felt he was being sidelined, he did the same. He even leaked news of joining the PTI just to put pressure on the prime minister. ”
In addition to Saad Rafique, petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also called on the interior minister at the Punjab House. According to the source, Nisar told the visiting ministers that the party leadership should allow a party office-bearer to express his views under true democracy in norms as “so much filth and false rumours were being spread against him.”
He added that Nisar was seriously planning to leave the country for medical treatment for his backache; the minister had recently had got his blue passport renewed and he may leave any time for treatment.
When contacted, the ministry spokesperson said that he was unaware of any meeting of the minister with any of his cabinet colleagues or any of political leader. However, when asked whether the scheduled press conference would be addressed by the minister on Sunday (today) at 5pm, he confirmed that the minister would address the presser.
There is some speculation within party sources about the original nature of his disagreement. Some sources within the party claim that the interior minister’s resentment stems from the fact that the premiere did not ask for his advice when dealing with the Panama case while others claim that the root cause of the resentment is the conspicuous absence of his name from the list of party leaders being considered for the position of interim prime minister in case the incumbent were to be disqualified. This second explanation gains even more merit when considering that the aforementioned list reportedly includes the name of certain party leaders that he has had a famous falling out with, like defence minister Khawaja Asif.
Some analysts also believe that the prime minister himself is running out of patience for Nisar and his petulant behaviour of showing airs whenever the party is down, the last example being his mercurial attitude in 2014.
