LAHORE: At Friday's foundation stone-laying ceremony in Mianwali, certain things were said about former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s illness, and Prime Minister Imran Khan talked about investigation into the malaise afflicting his rival.
Well, such an investigation can draw only conclusions: either Nawaz Sharif feigning an illness as it is being alleged or mocked at, or he is seriously ill, yet being mocked at. In either case, demise of morality from our politics is manifest.
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s jibe at PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif’s health casts aspersions on reliability of his own sources to verify the ailments and the veracity of his so-called ‘improbable NRO’.
In his speech, Prime Minister Imran Khan couldn’t resist talking about the ailment of his political rival and three-times ex-premier by saying sarcastically “if Nawaz’s recovery from his critical ailments owes it to the sight of a luxurious plane or the London climate”, and thus implying Nawaz Sharif to be feigning his illness.
The Special Medical Board, constituted by the Punjab government for the treatment of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, recommended Nawaz Sharif’s treatment abroad in view of his worsening condition due to lack of response to conventional first line treatment of ITP in relation to his co-morbidities. “He (Nawaz Sharif) may be allowed shifting abroad to a centre of excellence of his choice on his own risk,” ruled the 14-member Special Medical Board headed by Prof Dr Mahmood Ayyaz, principal SIMS/SHL, along with 9 members and four co-opted members.
Punjab Health Minister Prof Dr Yasmin Rashid, who herself is a renowned medical specialist in the discipline of gynaecology, regularly monitored treatment of Nawaz Sharif in Services Hospital in Lahore and declared his condition to be “extremely precarious” on several occasions.
On the instructions of Prime Minister Imran Khan, a team of medics from Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital (SKMCH) led by CEO Dr Faisal Sultan also visited Nawaz Sharif during his treatment in Services Hospital later last month and apprised PM Imran Khan of his condition. PML-N leader Engr Khurram Dastagir had disclosed that SKMCH team had also taken Nawaz Sharif’s blood sample for verification of his ailments.
Based on this ‘reliable information’ from his personal sources, Prime Minister Imran Khan was convinced about Nawaz Sharif’s precarious health and decided to allow Nawaz Sharif to go abroad for treatment despite, as per his own claim, “majority of cabinet members’ opposition to the idea of allowing Nawaz Sharif to go abroad for treatment”. Imran Khan, in the same breath (in an earlier speech), also criticized the judiciary in veiled manner for strengthening impression of separate laws for the powerful and the weak while referring to Lahore High Court’s waiving off of federal government’s condition of signing an indemnity bond for Nawaz Sharif’s travel abroad for treatment.
It elicited a strong response from Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, reminding the Prime Minister that “it was his (PM’s) own decision to allow Nawaz Sharif to travel abroad”.
Casting doubts on the veracity of the medical reports or allowing Nawaz Sharif to travel abroad under a ‘rumoured deal’ in the absence of serious health condition, has serious political repercussions for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s narrative; and Prime Minister Imran has only himself to blame in either case of his sources being unreliable or the move to be considered one of his famous U-turns in dishing out an NRO to his biggest political rival.
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s criticism of Nawaz Sharif to be faking his illness, from another perspective, is a complete distrust on the medical judgment and recommendation of Punjab government’s multi-disciplinary Special Medical Board, which has its grave implications on the medical profession, which is already under fierce scanner for its inability to conduct full diagnosis and treatment of the ex-PM’s ailments locally.
Secondly, if Nawaz Sharif is allowed to travel abroad without a valid reason of medical emergency and PM is determined not to give an NRO, then Imran Khan has only himself to blame for giving credence to the idea of a power-that-be strong enough to ‘deal’ a death blow to PTI’s narrative of no-NRO.
The PM’s statement about Nawaz Sharif’s health had been widely criticized.
“Having been rescued from himself by whoever arranged the deal to get Nawaz Sharif out of jail and out of Pakistan, PM Khan insists on forcing everyone to remember that he lives and dies by the container. This container is now PM Khan & PTI’s prison,” says Mosharraf Zaidi, renowned columnist, while sharing a clip of PM’s speech on twitter.