Fawad rejects impression ‘inflation lessened Imran’s popularity’

LAHORE: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Sunday that some people had a perception that Prime Minister Imran Khan had lost popularity due to inflation, but they were wrong as he had vote bank everywhere from Karachi to Khyber, Lahore to Peshawar, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Talking to the media here, he said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was directly responsible for the current inflation in the country. He said Pakistan had taken only Rs6 trillion loan from 1947 to 2008, and strengthened armed forces, purchased Gwadar, built the capital city of Islamabad and the country became a nuclear power. He said that loan worth Rs23 trillion was taken from 2008 to 2018 when the PPP and PMLN were in power. He said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had to repay $55 billion loan in its five years tenure due to bad economic policies of the past regimes.

So far, the PTI government had repaid $32 billion loan during the past three years, he added and said that owing to the bad governance and plunder of the past rulers, the country was facing inflation today. “How come we can ignore them,” he asked. "Those who fled after looting and plundering the national exchequer are now giving lectures on economy," Fawad said.

The information minister said elections would be held in 1100 national and provincial assembly constituencies and there was no other party except for the PTI that could field its candidates on all those seats. "The PMLN is party of Punjab, PPP of Sindh and the JUIF is of some areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa," Fawad Ch claimed.

He said that when the elections time would come, the PTI leadership would show how elections were contested. The minister said that Imran Khan would form the government for next five years also.