• PTI to hold intra-party election today
• Hammad claims govt has no solution to fix economy
• Gill asks Maryam to stop making fake audios

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Tuesday said the government wanted to arrest him in order to break the momentum of the ongoing movement against it.

Speaking at the lawyers’ convention in Islamabad, Mr Khan said the government found his arrest the only way to curb the current agitation.

“It is the responsibility of the lawyers to take a stand for the rule of law,” he said, adding that those facing allegations of corruption to the tune of Rs16 billion had become prime minister and Punjab chief minister.

Mr Khan said if the Arab world could take a stand against India over the blasphemous remarks, why not Pakistan?

“The Sharif family should cut its business ties with India,” he added.

The former prime minister also lashed out at the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), alleging that it was trying to protect Hamza Shehbaz, which was why it had decided to fill the reserved seats after the by-elections.

“The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) wants to win the by-polls through rigging as it cannot win them in a transparent manner. I would say that wherever they go, people will call them with two names — traitors and thieves,” he said.

The PTI chief said his party’s government had put the country on the right track and the country’s GDP had been increasing at the rate of over five per cent per year.

“Wapda used to float bonds but ever since retired Lt-Gen Muzammil Hussain was forced to resign, the authority’s rating has become negative due to which it cannot take loans to build dams,” he said.

In another development, the PTI will be holding intra-party election on Wednesday (today).

According to the party’s chief election commissioner, Jamal Ansari, the national council will elect the party chairman and members of the federal and provincial governing bodies.

Meanwhile, PTI’s focal person on economic affairs Hammad Azhar accused the present government of neither having a game plan nor a solution to fix the ailing economy.

Speaking at a press conference, he said instead of hammering out a comprehensive plan to diagnose the problem and take remedial measures, the current setup had only one solution and that was to increase prices.

He feared that the country was rapidly heading towards bankruptcy.

“Every day one hears bad news about the economy,” Mr Azhar said, adding that holding free and fair elections was the only way the country could be pulled out of the current quagmire.

He said the gravity of the situation could be gauged from the fact that only in one-and-a-half months, electricity rate had been raised by Rs7.5, gas by 45pc and petrol price by Rs60 per litre.

Meanwhile, PTI chairman’s chief of staff Dr Shahbaz Gill said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had claimed that there would be zero loadshedding from May 1 onwards, but the country was still gripped by unprecedented power outages.

Talking to mediapersons, Mr Gill said when prices of petrol and diesel were going up all over the world, Imran Khan had brought them down to provide relief to the people.

He said the PTI government had convinced the International Monetary Fund (IMF) through parleys and did not kneel before the financial body like the ‘imported’ government had done.

Mr Gill said their government had eliminated all unnecessary expenditures whereas the current prime minister was spending millions just on a swimming pool. He also lashed out at Maryam Nawaz, asking her to stop making fake audios through deep-fake software.

“If there is any evidence, show it; the public is well-informed about the reality of your fake audios and videos,” he added.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2022