Tag: Zartaj Gul

  • VIDEO: On-air Zartaj Gul mistakes Ziaul Haq’s death anniversary for his birthday

    VIDEO: On-air Zartaj Gul mistakes Ziaul Haq’s death anniversary for his birthday

    Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul Wazir is once again in the crosshairs of trolls after saying former dictator General Ziaul Haq was born on August 17, which is actually the day he died in a plane crash.

    Speaking during a talk show at a private TV channel, Gul, in what became a failed jibe at the Pakistan Muslim Lague-Nawaz (PML-N) said she wanted to congratulate Mian Javed Latif on the birth anniversary of his party’s “founder”, Zia.

    “I want to congratulate Mian Javed Latif for it’s probably the birthday of Gen Ziaul Haq — who created this party [the PML-N] — as far as I remember,” the PTI minister said.

    The anchor and other participants in the show were left dumbfounded on the state minister’s lack of knowledge about the political history of Pakistan, Geo reported.

    Anchorperson Nadeem Malik then corrected her, saying “today is August 17 when Gen Zia and many others were killed in a plane crash in 1988”.

    Despite being corrected, Zartaj tried to save the crumbling pieces of her sarcastic comment, saying, “Okay, whatever, even if it was an accident, they should celebrate it because he created the party. They should commemorate the anniversary of his martyrdom.”

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    Fellow talk show guests — Sindh government spokesperson Senator Murtaza Wahab and Latif, the PML-N leader — were speechless, with the former putting his head in his hands and the latter showing an expression of contempt.

    This isn’t the first time that Gul had to face embarrassment for her remarks as earlier she had been brutally trolled for an ill-informed comment regarding COVID-19.

  • ‘Tamatar lay aao’: Shoe garland for Zartaj Gul upon return to constituency after over a year

    Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul on Saturday was received by agitated constituents who reportedly forced her to leave before she could continue with her agenda of addressing them, while a shoe garland was also placed on an inauguration plaque bearing her name.

    According to media reports, the minister, who was visiting the constituency after over a year, was not allowed by the agitated constituents in Fort Monroe to sit with them or deliver her address.

    “‘Tamatar lay aao [bring the tomatoes]’ they shouted after which the police escorted her [Gul] away,” a reporter affiliated with GNN said, adding that the constituents also raised slogans against the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

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    Sharing details of the shoe garland, he said it was placed on an inauguration plaque bearing the minister’s name in the Choti Bāla town of Dera Ghazi Khan.

    “This is not the first time a representative of the people has been treated like this by the locals for returning to the constituency after a long time,” the reporter maintained, adding that earlier a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker from Dera Ghazi Khan, Jamal Leghari, also had to face embarrassment upon his return.

    Gul has been a member of the National Assembly since August 2018 and is the first woman to be elected to the parliament from the mainly conservative Dera Ghazi Khan area of Punjab.

  • Memes break the internet after Zartaj Gul’s COVID-19 gaffe

    Memes break the internet after Zartaj Gul’s COVID-19 gaffe

    While explaining the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul, in a talk show, said that COVID-19 means that the coronavirus has 19 points that can be applied to any country based on the immunity levels of the people.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CBq1pYBp0TU/

    Soon after the minister’s statement, memes started pouring in on social media as the public began to troll Gul for her comments.

    Read More – ‘My Plans vs 2020’ memes accurately sum up the year 2020

    https://twitter.com/im_Noman_javid/status/1274919276445683713?s=20

    Meanwhile, Zartaj was unfazed by the criticism and said that such trolling does not bother her.

  • VIDEO: Zartaj Gul walks out of live show over JUI-F leader’s ‘disgusting’ remarks about her

    VIDEO: Zartaj Gul walks out of live show over JUI-F leader’s ‘disgusting’ remarks about her

    Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul has staged a walkout on live television to protest the “disgusting” remarks of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Hafiz Hamdullah against her.

    In a clip of the show from earlier this week, the minister can be seen expressing her disgust over what the JUI-F leader said regarding her in Pashto, in a video that went viral on Tuesday. “Such people, who do not respect women, should be boycotted by the society,” Gul tells the host of the private media outlet’s talk show before walking out in protest.

    She can also be heard urging media outlets to not invite people like Hamdullah to their talk shows, regretting that the JUI-F leader had spoken about a respectable woman such as herself, who was respected by men even in her conservative constituency of Dera Ghazi Khan.

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    “I don’t know if you know Pashto. But I didn’t say anything like that. She is like a sister to me. I have sisters and daughters… all women are like sisters to me,” Hamdullah tells the host after Gul’s walkout, when the anchorperson gives him a chance to explain his position and apologise if he had made those remarks.

    “The mood in which I spoke, I state under oath, I didn’t speak in a way as if I disrespect her,” Hamdullah responded. “Why would I? What issue do I have with her?

    “But despite all this… if she was hurt, then I apologise for that,” the JUI-F leader said. “I would not disrespect her even if she abused me.”

    The anchorperson praised the JUI-F leader for apologising to Gul. He, however, politely asked Hamdullah to quit the show as well.

    Meanwhile, sources informed The Current that Gul’s strong reaction had come in response to Hamdullah mocking her in a viral video, saying that his smile was great too. In an interview last month, Gul had praised Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, saying that “the world knows of his killer smile that pulls people out of crises”.

  • VIDEO: ‘PM Imran’s killer smile is enough for any doubts in crises,’ says Zartaj Gul

    VIDEO: ‘PM Imran’s killer smile is enough for any doubts in crises,’ says Zartaj Gul

    Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul Wazir, who is known for making statements that leave people in fits, has showered praise on Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan for having a charismatic personality and killer smile.

    “If we talk about the body language of PM Imran Khan, I think he is the finest charismatic man,” she can be heard as saying a video doing rounds over the internet.

    “The manner in which the premier walks, which can be seen in various videos, he comes with so much confidence and authority, which removes all doubts from our minds amid crises,” she adds.

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    This is not the first time the minister has expressed how starstruck does the premier leave her.

    Believe it or not, she had once said that the reason Pakistan was getting an abundance of rain and snowfall was because an honest man like Imran Khan was the country’s PM.

  • Proud to have army as our spokesperson: Zartaj Gul

    Proud to have army as our spokesperson: Zartaj Gul

    Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul has said that the (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is “proud to have the army as its spokesperson”.

    “We are proud that we are judiciary’s spokespersons [and] we are proud that the army is our spokesperson,” Gul said during her appearance on a SAMAA TV talkshow as she slammed the opposition for accusing the government of making state institutions controversial.

    She said that neither had the PTI government burdened the country with loans worth Rs31,000 billion nor had it enslaved the masses. “This is why the people and the army are with us.”

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    Calling out opposition members, including former prime minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman “for making judges and the armed forces controversial”, she also questioned their ideology and what they were standing for.

    When asked about the way forward with the opposition, she said a “13th player” of the team was doing politics and wished to take others’ children to D-Chowk in Islamabad.

    Gul added that opposition leaders at the Islamabad sit-in were “only troubled by the fact that this time they were not a part of the parliament”.

  • ‘With more vehicles, comes more pollution,’ Zartaj Gul blames Azadi March for smog

    Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul has said that the pollution in Lahore is increasing due to the extra number of vehicles entering Lahore for Azadi March.

    In a video posted on Twitter from Gul’s official account, the minister has termed all reports fake which are claiming that Lahore has entered into the list of most polluted cities of the world.

    She said that the company which has released this data wants the government to install their equipment for monitoring air pollution and is spreading misleading reports for the past two years.

    “They take their equipment out for recording data when the traffic is dense and use these reports to spread panic”, the minister added.

     

    Yesterday, the air quality monitoring station installed in US Consulate Lahore indicated that the Air Quality Index (AQI) of the city is near 469, while the threshold for hazardous levels of air quality is 300.

    Moreover, the London-based non-governmental organisation, Amnesty International in a statement released to the media on Wednesday stated that the levels of air quality in the province has been rated “near unhealthy” to “very unhealthy” for most of the year.

    The report also said that the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Lahore has reached 484 in the early morning. Meanwhile, EPA is still unable to show the actual picture of the scenario and is showing the unrealistic data in this regard.

    The South Asia Campaigner at Amnesty International, Rimmel Mohydin has also urged the government to do more to adequately address such a severe public health crisis — one that endangers people’s health and even their lives”.

  • Larkana by-election: ‘Is Bhutto still alive?’ Zartaj Gul trolls PPP

    Larkana by-election: ‘Is Bhutto still alive?’ Zartaj Gul trolls PPP

    With Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) facing defeat in Thursday’s Larkana by-election, Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul Wazir has trolled the rival party with a jibe at its late founder, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

    By-poll in the PS-11 constituency — considered a stronghold of Sindh’s ruling PPP — had been announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) after the Supreme Court had de-seated Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) candidate Moazzam Ali Abbasi in August.

    With an apex court bench declaring the election tribunal’s decision void and ordering re-election in the constituency, voters on Thursday polled to elect Abbasi, unofficial results revealed.

    As per preliminary results from 138 polling stations that were set up for the by-election, Abbasi bagged 31,557 votes, while his rival Jamil Soomro of the PPP obtained 26,021 votes.

    Reacting to the results, PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari vowed to challenge what he believes was “rigging” in the by-election.

    In a series of posts shared on Twitter, the PPP leader said he was proud of party workers for “fighting an honourable election,” which he claimed they did “despite immense pressure from the establishment”.

    The accusations, however, did not seem to bother GDA or its allies, one of which is the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

    “Wanted to ask if Bhutto is still alive or not,” PTI leader and minister Zartaj Gul tweeted.

    While many joined Wazir in her attempt to poke fun at the opposition party, others argued that the statement was in bad taste for speaking ill of the deceased.

  • VIDEO: ‘PM Imran addressed UN in Urdu,’ boasts Zartaj Gul

    VIDEO: ‘PM Imran addressed UN in Urdu,’ boasts Zartaj Gul

    Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul has said that Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan “is the only PM who addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in his beautiful mother tongue, Urdu”.

    In a video doing rounds over the internet, Gul, while addressing a gathering, can be heard as saying, “It is our Prime Minister Imran Khan who managed to garner respect for white shalwar kameez and spoke to the UN in his beautiful mother tongue, Urdu.”

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    Twitterati are trolling the minister for her remarks that suggest she didn’t even watch PM Imran’s address.

    Here’s his complete speech… in English.

  • Zartaj Gul under fire for seeking credit for global ‘Climate March’

    Zartaj Gul under fire for seeking credit for global ‘Climate March’

    Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul has drawn ire of hundreds of activists for “taking credit for Friday’s Climate March” in various cities of Pakistan and around the world.

    The minister, from her Twitter account, posted pictures of the march and wrote, “Held an engaged public awareness in Islamabad to trigger a more committed behaviour from civil society, and to affirm focus on sustainability initiatives.”

    But since the march was actually a citizens-led global event organised by Climate Action Now to help stop global warming in a call answered by Pakistanis as well, Twitterati didn’t let go of Gul’s claim easy.

    The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) minister faced severe criticism for her claims from participants of the march, including environmentalists, journalists and lawyers, as she didn’t really have much to do with the demonstrations.

    Gul’s tweet has since been deleted.