WEB DESK
The former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Saturday announced that they will dissolve their provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) next Friday, December 23.
He added that they will then surround the National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf to accept their resignations from the lower house of Parliament. After that, he said, they will prepare for elections, noting that if there have to be elections in 66% of the country, the government may as well hold elections in the entire country. Addressing the crowd gathered in the cold in Lahore’s Liberty Roundabout while he sat in his warm mansion in Zaman Park while flanked by Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) chief ministers Parvez Elahi and Mehmood Khan, Imran pointed towards the poor economy of the country and the conspiracy against his government.
He noted that economic indicators during his government were all on the up despite not receiving grants from the west unlike the three dictators who ruled Pakistan for the longest. Growth during dictatorships was due to their alignment with the West to fight their wars. During Ziaul Haque’s regime, there was the Afghanistan war where we sided with the West. During dictator General (retired) Pervez Musharraf’s tenure there was the War on Terror. During Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s tenure there was CENTO and SEATO. What was the reason that our government, under which the country was progressing economically, and a cabal of thieves were imposed on us? he asked.
He said that after their ouster when they approached the Supreme Court, even the judges were convinced that fresh elections should be held. But the Chief Election Commissioner Sultan Akram Raja went to the court and told them that elections cannot be held. The way they oppressed us was unlike at any point before. During Musharraf’s dictatorship, I was thrown in jail, but at no point was I treated like now. Our people were threatened on the phone and picked up. People were forced to flee abroad.
What they did with Shahbaz Gill, Dr Arsalan Khalid, Azam Swati.
He accused former chief of army staff General (retired) Qamar Javed Bajwa of engineering the ouster of his government.
