ISLAMABAD: Raja Riaz a lawmaker belonging to ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Wednesday requested the prime minister to make estranged party leader Jahangir Khan Tareen the chairman of the committee formed to choose candidates for the upcoming Senate elections.

During a parliamentary party meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the chair, Riaz said that Tareen’s services for the party cannot be ignored and demanded that the senior leader be made the head of the committee.

He also asked the prime minister to include Punjab Governor Chaudhry Sarwar, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Amir Kiyani, and Ijaz Chaudhry, in the committee formed to choose Senate candidates.

In November last year, Tareen, who had drifted away from Imran Khan after he was named in a sugar scam, had returned to Pakistan after spending five months in London. Tareen, once a close confidant of PM Imran Khan, had a falling out with the prime minister and the party leaders after he was named in an inquiry ordered by the prime minister over hike in sugar prices. The report made public by the government had named other politicians as well.

Following the report against Tareen, Riaz had defended him at the time as well. He had warned of huge loss to the PTI, if Jahangir Tareen parted his ways with the party. He had claimed that some people were providing wrong information to PM Imran Khan about Tareen.

Another party lawmaker Noor Alam Khan, proposed to the prime minister not to listen to the technocrats occupying key positions in his cabinet, saying “these unelected people are misguiding the prime minister on issues faced by masses i.e. skyrocketing inflation, unemployment, etc”.

“Mr prime minister, these unelected people will take a flight abroad once the [government] tenures ends [and] then you and we, the lawmakers will be answerable to people,” he said. The PTI government is yet to deliver on the promises made with the nation before coming into power, he said, adding, the common man and the people who voted for the PTI are questioning why the government failed to deliver despite passage of two and a half years in power.

The prime minister told the meeting that the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) of opposition parties had practically ended. The PDM has practically ended…the opposition parties tried their level best but the people of Pakistan rejected them as they’d nothing to do with the issues faced by the masses,” the PM was quoted as saying.

The prime minister said that complete inquiry into Hudaibiya Paper Mills would also be carried out as there would be no compromise on corruption.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021