Nadeem Afzal Chan quits as PM’s spokesman

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister’s Special Assistant for Political Coordination and spokesman Nadeem Afzal Chan Wednesday resigned from the federal cabinet. Chan had joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in April 2018 after quitting the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). He hails from Mandi Bahauddin. It is believed that though he had difference of opinion on many issues with the government, the prime reason of his quitting the government post, is seen to be the ‘delayed visit’ of Prime Minister Imran Khan to the grieving families of 10 coalminers, who were brutally martyred, and were staging sit-in, wanting him to visit them and share their grief and give them assurance of their protection.

Similarly, he was not in the forefront in mounting verbal attacks on the leaders of opposition parties, as majority of the spokespersons, in television talks shows and media talks. On January 08, Chan had tweeted, “O the hapless bodies of innocent miners, I am ashamed”. The prime minister flew to Quetta and met some of the family members of the slain Hazara community coalminers next day after their burial. He had been asking the victims’ families to bury them first so that he could visit them same day.

The other day, Chan tweeted that it was a sign of his weak faith that he did not just do politics of sympathy with the oppressed. He added that nowadays the popular narrative was to hurl abuses at politicians, which neither he did before, nor will do now.