Abbasi conspicuous by absence at PMLN meet

ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Shahhid Khaqan Abbasi did not attend the PMLN general Council meeting here on Friday, sources say.

Meanwhile, former Finance minister Miftah Ismail has made it clear that he isn’t in the business of anyone’s leg-pulling but is constrained to speak only truth. In a brief chat with The News late on Friday evening here after traveling from Karachi, he said he couldn’t hear the prime minister properly when he was speaking about those who were out to pull legs of Ishaq Dar and dared them by saying that they didn’t have accommodation in the PMLN.

Miftah served the PMLN government as Finance minister twice, first in 2017 and again when the incumbent government assumed office in April last year. On both the occasions, he wasn’t a member of any house of the parliament but worked as federal minister. To a query, he said he came to the federal capital to meet some friends including Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. When his attention was drawn towards the remarks of the prime minister about leg-pulling of Ishaq Dar, he said he had no clue about it. “Why did he say it and who he was pointing to, I have no idea.” Miftah maintained.

Sources have hinted that former prime minister and PMLN stalwart Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and his close buddy Miftah Ismail have no plan to part ways with Nawaz Sharif-led PMLN. Well-placed sources close to Abbasi who had cooperated in laying the foundation of “Reimagining Pakistan”, an intellectual movement forum, said he had been articulating his views about the political approach of the government in a frank manner and was found criticizing economic policies and certain political steps. Abbasi was senior vice president of the PMLN but quit the party office soon after Maryam Nawaz was made chief organiser and senior vice president of the party. In a strange move, he was ignored at a PMLN General Council meeting held in Islamabad on Friday. He is a member of the National Assembly (MNA) from Lahore and sits in the house on government benches. He was made prime minister by Nawaz Sharif in 2017. Nawaz Sharif first designated Shehbaz Sharif to replace him but on the following day changed his mind and made Abbasi his replacement.