Firdous Awan gets cold shoulder from PM Imran Khan: sources

• Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan claims she held a meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan in a cordial environment. 
• Sources, however, reported what she received from the PM was nothing but a chat while he walked towards a helicopter. 
• Dr Awan says she visited Governor House after receiving a message from PM House's protocol officer. 

LAHORE: PTI leader and former special assistant to the CM on information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan made Monday an all-out attempt to have a formal meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan but didn't get an opportunity for it, say sources.

Sources said Awan kept waiting for the PM at the waiting room of Governor House in Punjab to hold a formal talk with the premier. But when the PM emerged from the room and Awan tried to meet him, security personnel stopped her, said the sources.

Awan managed to get a chance for a walking chat with PM Imran Khan as he headed toward a helicopter to leave Governor House. The PM heard her while walking, the sources said.

"What is all this that happened to me in Punjab?" Awan complained to the Prime Minister, sources said. "You must know better, I had already sent you with great difficulty," was the premier's response, according to sources.

But Awan had a different story to tell.

Addressing the media, Awan brushed aside reports of her being snubbed. Instead, she said the meeting with the Prime Minister took place in a pleasant atmosphere at Governor House.

"Some mischievous elements aren't able to digest my meeting with the PM," she said. "Hence, they are disseminating false and baseless propaganda."

Dr Awan said she received a formal message from the PM Office for the meeting. "People should bear in mind that no one can meet the Prime Minister without an appointment," she highlighted. "It was only after I received a call from the PM's protocol [officer] that I met him."

"These spiteful people will get nothing but disappointment," she reiterated and called upon the people kicking up baseless news items to make sense of what they are saying.

Earlier, on Monday, the former CM adviser went to the premises of the Punjab Assembly to attend the oath-taking ceremony of PTI MPA Ahsan Saleem Baryar, who won the by-elections from PP-38 Sialkot. But she was barred from entering the ceremony.

The personnel on duty showed her a list of guests but her name was not there. Later, she talked to the media with Ahsan Saleem Baryar outside the Assembly and said she was denied entry as she was late for the ceremony.

In a strange turn of events in Punjab's politics last week, Dr Awan tendered her resignation from the post of adviser. On Friday, Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar accepted her resignation, according to a notification issued from CM Office, Punjab.