• PTI leader demands meeting with Imran to convince him on ‘national consensus’
• Jailed party leader says talk of ban on party, governor’s rule absurd; asserts stability through ‘authoritarian rule’ unsustainable

LAHORE: As the opposition PTI reels from the Nov 26 crackdown, party vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who is in jail along with other key leaders, on Saturday advocated for national reconciliation and national consensus to achieve political stability.

In a media talk after his appearance in an anti-terrorism court in Lahore, the former foreign minister expressed the hope that politically astute people in all political parties would play a role for a national dialogue since a ban on the PTI would only complicate the situation.

Mr Qureshi requested that he be provided an opportunity to meet party founder Imran Khan so that he could present his point of view towards national reconciliation and national consensus.

The remarks by the PTI leader came amid reports that the federal government had purportedly been deliberating a ban on the former ruling party and a governor’s rule in the PTI-run Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province due to repeated ‘onslaughts’ on the federal capital by the opposition party.

Mr Qureshi cautioned that crushing PTI would not be in the interest of Pakistan and the purported plan to proscribe the party and impose a governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was sheer absurdity.

He said political leadership had no idea about the consequences of such a decision, adding that Balochistan was facing insurgency, terrorism was rising in KP, and Sindh was protesting the federal government’s approach towards the water issue.

The PTI vice chairman said the incumbent government’s consideration to impose the governor’s rule in KP would be tantamount to desecrating the will of the people that gave a “two-thirds majority” to the PTI. “I do hope that the politically savvy people in the PML-N will oppose the idea of imposing the governor’s rule and warn their leadership that it will be a political and historical blunder,” Mr Qureshi said.

Referring to the tab­ling of a resolution in the Punjab Assembly seeking to proscribe the PTI, Mr Qureshi expressed his gratitude to the PPP for opposing the resolution. He also thanked different political parties, including the JUI-F, the Jamaat-i-Islami, and the Balochistan National Party (BNP-Mengal) for opposing a similar resolution in the Balochistan Assembly. He, however, expressed his surprise over Awami National Party’s Senator Aimal Wali Khan’s endorsement of banning the PTI.

Mr Qureshi reiterated that imposing the governor’s rule and proscribing PTI would hurt the federation. “Can the government attain economic stability without political stability or achieve IMF [funding],” he asked while addressing Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb.

“You can attain stability through authoritarian rule but it will not be sustainable. You can get desired results through election engineering but will fail to get legitimacy,” Mr Qureshi cautioned the people at the helm of affairs.

He also lauded Maulana Fazlur Rehman for his statement, wherein he said the basic problem still remained the “illegitimate and fake” results of the Feb 8 general elections. “If the Feb 8 elections were not rigged, the country would not have been suffering,” he quoted Maulana Fazl as saying.

Mr Qureshi also called saner people to think that the Supreme Court’s full court decision on the PTI reserved seats case was not implemented. He also prayed for the PTI workers, who were reportedly martyred at D-Chowk on Nov 26, and expressed condolences to the berea­ved families. Regretting that the media had been gagged, he described as frivolous the cases lodged against journalists Matiul­lah Jan and Shakir Awan.

Meanwhile, PTI Punjab President Dr Yasmin Rashid condemned the killing of innocent protesters. “The government killed Pakistani kids,” she claimed while speaking to media persons at the ATC.

“Never such fascism was unleashed in Pakis­tan,” she observed and added that everyone involved would be held accountable here and hereafter.“

Dr Rashid said the PTI during its rule did not stop long marches by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Maryam Nawaz.

“Being provincial minister, I had stated that the opposition had its constitutional right to protest and the PTI did not stop the opposition’s long marches,” she asserted, adding that she would write a letter to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to constitute a judicial commission to probe the D-Chowk crackdown.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2024