RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: The much-awaited press conference of interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was cancelled due to some backache problem, said his spokesperson on Sunday.

According to his spokesperson, Chaudhry Nisar has been recommended complete bed rest, and the press conference has been rescheduled for Monday (today) at 5pm.

Insisting that the press conference was delayed solely because of the interior minister’s ill health, the spokesperson requested the media to avoid reading too much into the matter.

However, the sources privy to the development told Business Recorder that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif along with leader of the house in Senate Raja Zafrul Haq, persuaded the flamboyant minister to cancel his press conference, at least for some days.

“It is not yet confirmed whether Nisar will hold the press conference on Monday (today) or not,” they added.

The sources said that both Shahbaz and Raja Zafar, whom Nisar takes in great esteem, have somewhat calmed down the minister not to target anybody in the leadership during the press conference, as it will not benefit the party when the party is passing through a critical juncture.

Interior minister is reported to have been unhappy with the way some PML-N leaders handled Panama Papers crisis.

When contacted, a spokesperson for the minister had said that he had seen none of the ministers coming to Punjab House to hold a meeting with Chaudhry Nisar.

The interior minister had attended a meeting of the federal cabinet on July 13 where members of the cabinet reposed confidence in the PM’s leadership. But he skipped two important meetings of the PML-N after that.

While many members of the cabinet kept on issuing vociferous statements against the Joint Investigation Team constituted in the Panama Papers case and some even indirectly uttered remarks against the judiciary, Nisar is the only minister who did not say a single word about the JIT report.