By Mashal Khan

ISLAMABAD (TSAT) - Former Prime Minister and self-exiled leader of the Pakistan ruling party, Nawaz Sharif called his party premier and ministers for a meeting in London.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif along with other key ministers including Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, and others left for the UK on Tuesday to attend the meeting on Wednesday. 

Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb posted a video on her Twitter showing PM Sharif meeting with his elder brother Nawaz Sharif upon arrival at his residence in London.

The calling of the premier and his key cabinet members to London for a meeting by the former Prime Minister was widely criticized in the country.

“If Nawaz Sharif wants to run Pakistan, he has to come to Pakistan. If Ishaq Dar wants to fix the economy he has to come to Pakistan. They cant puppeteer the govt from London. You cant have 2 PMs, 2 finance ministers and 2 PM houses. It is unviable; reduces government to a joke,” a senior Pakistani journalist Talat Hussain wrote on Twitter. 

Hussain urged Prime Minister Sharif to take practical measures as the country’s economy is devastating. 

“PM Shehbaz Sharif needs to wake up. Dollar at interbank at historic high of rs 190; interbank up by ra 1.34. During this fiscal year, the rupee has fallen by 32.46 against the dollar increasing the debt by rs 4000. Dollar in the open market is selling around Rs191.50.”

Nawaz Sharif who is currently living in London, has declared an “absconder” by the Islamabad High Court last year in the cases after he failed to appear before the court.

In November 2019, the Lahore High Court granted a four-week permission to the former three-time premier to travel abroad on medical grounds.

However, according to Sharif's family counsel, the court also had ruled that the deadline could be extended on the recommendation of doctors.

The former premier was suffering from acute immune thrombocytopenic purpura, a bleeding disorder in which the immune system destroys platelets, and he is currently in London for his treatment, according to Anadolu Agency. 

In 2017, he was disqualified by the country's top court over the Panama Papers scandal, which also led to the filing of three corruption cases. Not long after, the top court also barred him from holding the leadership of his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

In the first case, Sharif was sentenced in July 2018 to 10 years in prison in a corruption case by an accountability court in Islamabad, but the Islamabad High Court suspended the conviction in September 2018.

In the second case, known as Al-Azizia, in December 2018, Sharif got seven years in prison for owning assets beyond known income sources. The court suspended the prison term and granted him eight-week bail on medical grounds in October 2019.