Islamabad (HRNW) On the eve of the country’s Diamond Jubilee, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday hold out an olive branch to his bitter rival Imran Khan, renewing his offer of sitting together to reach a consensus on the “charter of economy” in the greater national interest amid worsening economic crises.
Coming a day after President Dr Arif Alvi offered his offices to broker some dialogue between the prime minister and the PTI chief, the offer from Shehbaz attains greater significance.
The president had called upon the country’s political leadership to lower rhetoric and adopt the policy of reconciliation, feeling that the country was drifting away from achieving its real objectives because of self-created political and economic crises.
The president and the prime minister’s offer to pour oil on the troubled waters has come amid skyrocketing political mercury with relentless confrontations among stakeholders, charges of inciting mutiny in the armed forces against Imran’s chief of staff and the economic woes left to bear the brunt of political wrangling.
In a televised address to the nation minutes before the PTI chairman’s address to a rally in Lahore, the prime minister lambasted the PTI government’s performance during the last almost four years and kept questioning if that could lead to getting real independence – a tacit reference to Imran’s slogan of obtaining real independence where the country would pursue an independent foreign policy and no one would dare to dictate Pakistan.
Being opposition leader in the National Assembly, PM Shehbaz said he had offered the charter of economy and added “today, as Prime Minister of Pakistan, I am once again offering the opposition to discuss the charter”.