PML-N leader Miftah Ismail on Thursday expressed regret over bringing up Ishaq Dar’s relation to the Sharifs during a tirade on his ouster as finance minister.
In a podcast with internet personality Nadir Ali on Wednesday, Ismail said that he was removed as finance minister in September last year and did not want to resign.
The PML-N leader also blamed Dar for orchestrating a campaign to undermine him. “Dar used to appear on TV and say he will bring the dollar down,” Ismail said. “He used to make anchors do programmes against me.”
The former finance minister also alleged that Dar also used to ask famous anchorpersons to tweet against him.
“Dar wanted to become a minister,” Ismail said. “Eventually his desire was fulfilled because he is the father-in-law of Nawaz Sharif’s daughter and he used to stay with him in London as well.”
Ismail said that Dar also managed to give the impression that he would bring down the dollar rate as well as the price of oil if he took charge.
“Then Mian sb (Nawaz) decided to remove me,” Ismail said. “I don’t care that I was removed but the way I was removed was not right.”
However, in a tweet on Thursday, Ismail appeared to regret his choice of words.
“I mentioned Dar sahab’s relations with the party leadership which has been a given a spin by the media. Upon reflection, I regret doing so,” he said.
He thanked Fawad Hasan Fawad and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbas for pointing out his mistake and also posted a clip from the same podcast.
Ismail’s departure had come after months of speculation that PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and Dar had been unhappy with some of his key decisions, specifically with regard to the fuel price hike.
Further, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz had also said she did not agree with the decision to hike petrol and electricity prices, saying she did not own such decisions, whether her party was in government or not.
In September last year, Ismail told students present at an event held at Karachi’s Institute of Business Administration that “the government has 13 months but I may not have that much time”. It fuelled speculations about the internal rift in the party, and the senior leadership’s desire to replace him with Dar.
These speculations were confirmed after a slew of audio recordings, purportedly of conversations between the prime minister and key PML-N figures, were leaked.
One of them featured a conversation between Maryam and PM Shehbaz about Ismail, wherein the latter is critical of the ex-minister’s decisions regarding the economy.
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