Punjab information minister Fayyaz ul Hasan Chohan on Thursday lashed out at Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry over his recent criticism of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar.
Chohan was asked about the federal minister's statements during a talk show on a private news channel when he said Fawad had "crossed all limits" when it came to violating the party's discipline.
"You should think about how to benefit the ship that you're on," said Chohan. "It is not his [Fawad] prerogative to give opinions on whether Chief Minister Buzdar should stay or go," he added.
The provincial minister said only Prime Minister Imran Khan had the prerogative to decide whether Buzdar should remain as Punjab's chief executive or not. He said the prime minister, the entire cabinet and treasury benches were satisfied with Buzdar's performance "one hundred percent".
"I can give him befitting, beautiful replies in my style," said Chohan. "However, I am bound by my disciplined attitude not to do so. I would request him that 'excess of everything is bad'".
The information minister expressed disappointment that Fawad had still not learned how to talk about people from his party or government. Chohan said Fawad was like a brother to him and he knew him for the past eight years.
"However, this has been his problem and he will never change," he said. "It is his habit to try to become a hero. He tries to issue a statement every month or so to become a hero in front of the media," he added.
Chohan advised Fawad to play his part as the federal minister of science and technology to ensure Pakistan became a force to be reckoned with in space. "I request you to prepare a Ghauri II or a Ghauri III for space. Leave the clerics and Usman Buzdar alone," he added.
It had earlier been reported that Fawad, during a meeting of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s core committee, lashed out at the Punjab chief minister over its “failure to deliver”.
The federal minister had then reportedly informed Prime Minister Imran Khan that the Punjab government had only used 77 billion out of the 350bn allocated for development purposes.
In the meeting, Chaudhry, as per Geo News sources, also accused the Punjab government of not giving finance commission award to the districts.
Upon Chaudhry's accusations, sources said, the prime minister directed the provincial government to release the award.
Last week Fawad criticised the availability of discretionary funds to chief ministers by tweeting that they were "against public interest" and a violation of Article 140-A of the Constitution.
Chaudhry's comments had come amid reports that he was not happy with the Punjab government. According to Geo News, Chaudhry had said that the problem was not limited to the Punjab province, but stemmed from unfair allocation of development funds.
“The problem is of the distribution of funds, and not of Punjab government,” Chaudhry said in a post on Twitter.. He added that the dispensation of funds at the discretion of chief ministers' instead of a set formula was against Article 140-A.
In his tweet, Fawad had also said that chief minister considered themselves "kings". “The chief ministers consider themselves kings [because of the power to dole our funds as they please]," he tweeted, adding that "this is against the public interest."