LAHORE: Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid has said the PML-N’s politics can “improve” if Nawaz Sharif comes back from London by Sept 10.

But, according to him, if Nawaz didn’t return the N-league might be divided in two factions — one of these being “S-group”.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, he said the opposition was in danger and not the government in the present political situation.

He termed the opposition’s APC (all parties conference) just a tactic to remain in the media.

“Through such activities, the media covers the opposition that wants to be in the news. I believe that the government faces no threat from the opposition. However, the opposition is in danger,” he said.

Mr Rashid was also confident that both the PML-N and the the PPP would never follow Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s plan to topple the government.

“They (the opposition) will just do the politics of protests, processions etc just to remain in the media and nothing more. And I am sure they (the PML-N and the PPP) will also neither tender resignations from the assemblies, nor give anything in writing to Maulana Fazlur Rehman,” he said.

He said both the Nawaz League and PPP wanted a dialogue with the government, but JUI-F chief Maulana Fazl didn’t want this since he was very angry.

“So the government will treat the opposition keeping in view their actions. There will be a tit-for-tat policy,” he said.

He said a majority of the participants, who attended Maryam Nawaz’s rally in Lahore (in front of NAB offices) belonged to N-league and not “S-league”.

“I think that the reason behind [the prime minister] not accepting the resignation of Asim Saleem Bajwa is that the allegations against him were not based on facts. Moreover, he (Mr Bajwa) will surely give money trail if someone seeks this,” Rashid said casually while responding to journalists’ questions.

Talking about his department, he said the Pakistan Railways had completed the 11km stretch of the KCR (Karachi Circular Railway).

“We have received Rs10 billion to complete this (KCR) project,” he said, adding that international tenders for ML-1 project would be floated from Sept 12.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2020