Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid said that inflation is our biggest rival, adding that wheat and sugar crises were a conspiracy.

He said that cabinet is impeding Maryam’s clearance from no-fly list, against her wishes to go abroad for seeing her ailing father.

About India’s recent nationalist resurgence, the minister said “It is due to Modi’s policies that people are chanting Pakistan zindabad slogans in India.”

Addressing a news conference at Railways Headquarters in Lahore, Sheikh Rashid said that no opposition party, including PML-N, has the guts to confront the government. “They can just do TV programmes.”

About MQM, the minister said it is a “noble party”, adding that if Maulana Fazlur Rehman came to stage a sit-in protest in Islamabad, he would be arrested this time. “But we will serve him with samosas and pakoras if he come for a public gathering.”

He said that the cabinet would not allow Maryam Nawaz to go abroad, adding “if Maryam went to London, then my friend and the opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif will have to reconsider his political future.”

The minister said no power in the world could keep the Kashmiris from their ultimate liberation, adding that Prime Minister Imran took Kashmir’s matter to the UN forum thrice. “Now the people are chanting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans in India.”

Sheikh Rashid said that the government’s economic team is trying to take Pakistan out of the grey list.