Disgruntled PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Thursday hit back at party president Shahbaz Sharif for calling him "childish".

The former interior minister expressed his surprise that the PML-N president “did not understand the difference between childish behaviour and serious actions”.

Earlier on Wednesday, while talking to media persons after an inaugural ceremony at District Headquarters Hospital in Rajanpur, Shahbaz Sharif had said: “There is something childish about him [Nisar], you have to deal with him like a child.”

Nisar, responding today through a statement, said: “Childish behaviour is the attitude that the PML-N party leaders have adopted and it’s Shahbaz Sharif’s non-seriousness that he is doing nothing as the party president to address these issues."

Shahbaz, talking about Nisar's early days with the party, had remarked that at that time, the latter was “friends with Nawaz Sharif and my opponent”.

“I am talking about 1988. He [Nisar] used to constantly complain about me to Mian saab [Nawaz Sharif],” the PML-N president had said.

Responding to this, the former minister advised the PML-N president to forget decades-old matters and instead use his strengths to resolve the current outstanding issues.

Last month, amid growing rifts between Nisar and the party, Shahbaz had met the former interior minister more than once. “Shahbaz faces the daunting task of persuading his elder brother to have a one-on-one sitting with Nisar to iron out their differences. If he does not succeed, I am afraid Nisar will have to look for other political options,” a PML-N leader from Punjab had remarked.