ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry on Sunday said that effectual political footing, strong foreign policy and prudent economic plans of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had put the country on right track of prosperity.

Addressing a press conference here, the minister said that the government had paid Rs 9.8 billion in loans, which was more than the budget of Sindh province while the government was still striving to overcome the economic situation.

He said that the government remained successful in passing the federal budget for the year 2019-20 and started working to meet the challenges in tax collection target which was fixed at Rs 5600 billion.

The minister assured that the government will be able to improve the financial condition of the country within six months while the government also remained successful in achieving foreign policy goals.

He termed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s visit to Pakistan and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s upcoming visit to the US as game changer. He said that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi during his visit to Brussels signed various agreements, one whole chapter was on science and technology cooperation, he added.

He said after British Airways, other European Union airlines had started modifying their advisories regarding Pakistan. Prince William and Kate Middleton are also coming to Pakistan in August, he added.

Fawad Chaudhry said that the government of Pakistan will establish a COMSATS university in Kandhar and Mineralogy Laboratory in Kabul, Afghanistan.

“There were good news for Pakistan and bad news for the opposition. Now is the time for our country to rise as we will have a glory time that will make us remembering 1960s.”

He said that due to strong political base and vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, parliamentarians from PML-N and other opposition parties had started leaving their parties.

He said “We did not try to convince them or plan any lobbing for this but they were well aware of the future political situation and the political career of PML-N.”

Fawad said “PTI was not involved in any grouping of PML-N but actually their leadership was the reason behind all this. There was a fight of leadership in PML-N and Sharif Family.”

He said PML-N leader Shehbaz Sharif had resigned from all the committees and just remained opposition leader in the National Assembly. He added no one pays attention to Shehbaz Sharif in the PML-N.

He said that Shehbaz Sharif is not a crisis leader and that leadership of the PML-N had been taken over by Maryam Nawaz. He added Shehbaz had become Fazal Elahi or Rafiq Tarar now as Shehbaz is nothing more than a figurehead.

He said that Shehbaz Sharif talked about Charter of Economy on the floor of the National Assembly with Khawaja Asif next to him. When Maryam Nawaz rejected it, Asif Khawaja himself changed his stance to support Maryam.

He said that Maryam Nawaz had snatched the PML-N’s narrative from her uncle Shehbaz Sharif. He said that Maryam Nawaz is the one who ousted her own father from power, made him go to jail and took over the party leadership.

The minister termed the opposition attitude as immature and challenged to try to remove Chairman Senate, whom he declared government’s candidate for the slot. “They should try to do so to know how many their senators support them.”