Nawaz Sharif has shut all doors for his return, says Sheikh Rashid

ISLAMABAD: Terming the opposition’s All Parties Conference (APC) a failure, Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on Saturday said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has shut all doors for his return to Pakistan after his address at the moot.

Talking to Geo News anchor Shahzad Iqbal in the ‘Naya Pakistan’ programme, Sheikh Rashid questioned Nawaz's credibility as he spoke against the establishment, noting that Nawaz "was brought to power by the former military ruler General Ziaul Haq", and adding that he believed that "the PML-N supremo will now take political asylum in the UK".

The PML-N supremo, in his speech via video link from London, had lambasted Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government over what he described as its failure to govern the country democratically.

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The root cause of problems being faced by the country was that the country had been deprived of true democracy, Nawaz had regretted. "The Constitution says that the opinion of people should be respected, which is the real spirit of democracy," he had said. 

“This is the principle of democracy in the world: when democracy is hit, the entire democratic system becomes meaningless,” he had said.

Sheikh Rashid said a call made by Maulana Fazlur Rehman for resignations from the assemblies was muted by the APC itself. 

"The expressions on the faces of Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Shehbaz Sharif at the APC were worth watching," he remarked.

Maintaining that military has no interest in administrative matters, the federal minister said Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa has clearly told the political leaders to arrange the Gilgit-Baltistan elections on their own as the military is not interested in such matters.