Pak PM Nawaz Sharif annoyed with his interior minister

Pakistan Prime Minister is annoyed with his interior minister, Chauhdry Nisar Ali Khan, over the latter’s “aggressive” attitude, close aides said.

This is not the first time that Prime Minister Sharif has a “cold war” with the top security manager as at a number of times Mr Khan even stopped talking to the Premier after the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) took over power in 2013.

A senior government official said Mr Sharif was annoyed over the aggressive attitude of Mr Khan and his persistent differences with some of his Cabinet colleagues.

A credible source in the ruling party said Mr Khan believed that Mr Sharif had never accepted his recommendations on key matters.

He said that the Prime Minister wanted to go a little soft on main Opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the interior minister was not ready to accept this.

Sources in the party said that Mr Khan came out harsh against leader of Opposition Syed Khurshid Shah but was not supported by the PML-N.

The interior minister was made to take back his words after a statement that leader of Opposition was taking undue benefits from government for remaining soft to the ruling party in the Parliament and once again Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif — Prime Minister Sharif’s brother — played a role in placating him to submission. Sources in the party said that previously Interior Minister wanted Prime Minister to sack some of the inefficient cabinet members and those who are tainted with corruption charges. Prime Minister Sharif agreed to the Interior Minister’s point of view and it was decided that initially they would start with the evaluation of each and every Minister’s performance and then would go for bringing in new faces by dropping those who have under-performed in the first half of the government’s mandated term. But the PM never took action. These sources said that after getting disappointed over the Prime Minister’s inaction on this count, the Interior Minister on his own presented his ministry’s performance before the parliament putting pressure on rest of his cabinet colleagues to follow. The move did not go well with the Prime Minister and those against Mr Khan in the cabinet used the situation to further disenchant Prime Minister with one of the strongest leader in the ruling party. Sources in the party said the irritants which had earlier severed the relations between Mr Khan and Prime Minister Sharif, were resurfacing.