Buzdar's jibe at Hamza over 'missing' finance minister.

LAHORE -- Former chief minister Usman Buzdar on Saturday issued an 'missing alert' on social media to 'locate' the Punjab finance minister, who is supposed to prepare and present the provincial budget for 2022-23 on Monday (tomorrow).

Sharing a mock advertisement on his Twitter account, in which the picture's space was left bank, Mr Buzdar asked the readers to 'contact the Punjab Assembly, if you have any information about the finance minister', who has been 'missing since April this year'.

Through the tweet, Mr Buzdar has tried to settle scores with the PML-N politicians, now in the government, who had been calling him a 'puppet' whose Punjab government was being run from Bani Gala (Imran Khan's private residence).

Since Hamza Shehbaz was elected as chief minister on April 16, the PML-N government is under the PTI scanner and was being bashed time to time.

The PTI alleges that because of the PML-N's internal difference the party was unable to award portfolios to the members of its 'so-far small' cabinet despite passage of 11 days since the ministers took the oath of their office.

In response to PML-N's taunts that the Buzdar government was being run from Bani Gala, the PTI Punjab president Dr Yasmin Rashid says the PML-N set up was being controlled from Jati Umra (Maryam Nawaz's residence) and London, equating it with the rule of East India Company.

She says PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz is practically running the Punjab government of Hamza Shehbaz and she is even intervening in the award of portfolios to ministers, besides officers' transfers and postings.

Recently, in a leaked audio clip being attributed to Maryam Nawaz, the PML-N vice president could be heard saying that she was looking after the government's media affairs.

Referring to the PML-N's criticism that former governor Umer Sarfraz Cheema...