PML-N needs to rise above personal interests: Nisar

ISLAMABAD: Former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Monday said that the members of the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) needs to rise above personal interests for the larger interest of the party.

“If [members of the party] rise above personal interests, only then issues that exist within the party and even personal interests can be tended to,” Nisar said in an informal conversation with the media.

Referring to the ongoing rumors about early elections, the senior PML-N leader insisted that he would be the ‘last person’ who will be part of the narrative that the elections should not be held on time.

“I will be the last person to become part of the narrative that the elections should not be held on time,” he said. “But I don’t understand why Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi keeps mentioning a technocrat government. He should refrain from doing so.”

Discussing the upcoming elections in 2018, the former interior minister said that the PML-N remains in a state of confusion as other parties gear up to campaign.

He further said that the PML-N should take ownership for its own actions and refrain from blaming others for its decisions.

“From the Panama Papers case in the Supreme Court, to Nawaz Sharif’s address to the nation on the case’s verdict, and accepting the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), these were all the party’s own decisions and it is wrong to blame others for conspiring against the party on these issues.”

Nisar disclosed that he had suggested that the party consult the military leadership on the reservations that it had with the JIT.

During the informal conversation, he told the journalists that he had taken the decision to begin the Karachi Operation without consulting the armed forces.

He also said that he was on good terms with the military’s leadership including General (r) Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, General (r) Raheel Sharif, and the current Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

“Governance is not an easy job,” he said, “and the only rule that works is giving respect in order to gain respect.”