MIAN Nawaz Sharif is holding meetings as if he was still the Punjab Chief Minister, a job which he gave up no less than 18 years ago, in order to become Prime Minister of Pakistan for the first of two times. Even though he no longer holds any official position but that of a party chief, he has now started using younger brother Shahbaz being chief minister of the Punjab to hold executive meetings. This is a dangerous trend. The main issue is that this generates irresponsible government, for Mian Nawaz is not responsible to the Punjab Assembly, which is supposed to exercise oversight and control over the provincial organs of state, through its reposing of confidence in Mian Shahbaz and his Cabinet, who are, unlike Mian Nawaz, members of that Assembly. And when the government is no longer responsible to any elected assembly, the government is no longer democratic. It almost seems that Mian Nawaz resents the fact that Mian Shahbaz, as chief minister, has developed a greater reputation than him, and that Mian Shahbaz, in connection with the wheat procurement campaign, has once again toured the province, and issued orders on the spot, of the kind beloved by Mian Nawaz. However, Mian Nawaz should learn that he has graduated from being a provincial politician to being a national, and it no longer suits him to be seen as handling provincial affairs, even if the province in question is the country's most populous. It was seen as nepotism for him to impose his brother, and if that brother, by dint of hard work, managed to regain the office he had been deposed from, Mian Nawaz should not attempt to meddle.