Two top federal cabinet members – Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Asad Umar – demanded the removal of their colleague Fawad Chaudhry as they met Prime Minister Imran Khan, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Thursday.

Revealing the inside story of the meeting, it said the two ministers argued that the recent interview of Fawad showed as if they were responsible for the government failures.

An impression is being given that the party and the government are proving a failure because of them, they said.

Qureshi and Asad said they had neither conspired against Jahangir Tareen nor were part of any conspiracy. Describing Fawad’s statement as irresponsible, they said not taking any action against Fawad would give an impression of being lax.

During the meeting, the prime minister listened to the two ministers carefully but did not make any comments.

But Fawad on Thursday in a tweet said that politics was not for the “weak-hearted” and vowed to stay on as minister till he had the prime minister’s confidence. There was no question of resigning on someone else’s wish, he added.

https://twitter.com/fawadchaudhry/status/1275875872655003650

Fawad has created a hysteria through his interview with the Voice of America in which he said the PTI government had six months to perform.

He also said that Tareen had Asad removed from the finance ministry and that the infighting between Asad, Tareen and Qureshi affected the party a lot. 

According to Fawad, when Asad was the finance minister, Tareen made every effort to get him removed and when Asad came back, he ousted Tareen.

He said one of the main problems was the infighting between the PTI's senior leadership. “When the political vacuum was created, it was filled up with new people who were not from politics,” Fawad said.

“When your core team was disturbed it was filled with new people who were frankly not aligned with ideas and won’t be and don’t have the capacity to either," he added.

The very next day of the interview, Fawad came under heavy fire at a federal cabinet meeting as he and Asad exchanged harsh words.

Also, Federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda said some people [with reference to Asad and Qureshi] within the party were involved in conspiracies. Some ministers considered themselves as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, he added.

But it was Punjab Minister for Information Fayazul Hassan Chohan who was first to ask Fawad to resign. “Such a disgruntled individual better leave the party instead of spreading rumours and damaging the party,” he had told 24NewsHD TV channel soon after Fawad’s interview appeared in media.