ISLAMABAD / LAHORE: Leaders of the ruling coalition parties slammed PTI chief Imran Khan for “creating chaos and unrest” and “breaking the Constitution” as the former premier began a march towards the capital on Friday.

Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb tweeted that the nation had rejected the PTI’s march by “refusing to become a slave to the unconstitutional, foreign-funded” person and “pawns in someone’s lust for power”.

The PTI’s march began a day after the country’s spymaster appeared in public for the first time, saying he could not remain silent when the “institutions” were being targeted. He spoke at a presser alongside the military’s spokesperson.

That presser, according to Climate Minister Sherry Rehman, exposed Mr Khan’s “game of lies”. Imran Khan’s “politics of lies and deceit has been exposed”, showing how he could sacrifice the country’s interests for his “greed for power”, she said at a press conference on Friday.

“PTI’s march is not a long march, but a short march. If he wants to do a long march, he should have started from Karachi,” she said.

“They ask us why we have put blockades all over the capital. Do they want us to leave the capital open for them so they can harm the institutions as they did with PTV in 2014?” the minister wondered.

She alleged that the PTI chief wanted things to escalate, so he could find a legitimate excuse to cross into the red zone.

Referring to Mr Khan, she said: “Every day you are telling a lie with the hope that it becomes a truth. This is a thinking of a fascist demagogue and not someone who believes in the institution of democracy.”

‘Chaos and unrest’

Syed Hasan Murtaza, PPP’s parliamentary leader in the Punjab Assembly, also criticised Mr Khan for launching yet another march on Islamabad aimed at “creating chaos and unrest in the country”.

In a statement issued on Friday, he said that under the guise of the haqeeqi azadi (real freedom) march, PTI Chairman wanted to break free from the Constitution and the law of the land.

Mr Murtaza, who also serves as general secretary of PPP’s central Punjab chapter, claimed that PTI leaders had themselves admitted that revelations made in the military’s presser were true, including a disclosure that the former premier offered an indefinite extension to the army chief in March, ahead of a confidence vote in parliament in April.

‘March to fizzle out in week’

In Faisalabad, the former state minister and PML-N’s central leader Talal Chaudhry said on Friday that PTI’s march was actually a muafi (apology) march and would fizzle out within a week “without producing any results”, the APP news agency reported.

Mr Chaudhry, addressing a press conference, also took exception to the Punjab government for allegedly using official sources “to make the long march successful”.

However, he said the PTI’s march would not lead to its desired revolution, as its organisers and participants “are afraid of police officials”.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2022