LAHORE, Jan 19: Tehrik-i-Minhajul Quran chief Dr Tahirul Qadri said on Saturday his followers could have taken control of parliament had the government decided not to come to negotiation table during the recent sit-in in Islamabad.

“As the government was initially not ready to initiate a dialogue and was planning to sabotage our long march by force after some opposition parties led by Nawaz Sharif unanimously opposed our genuine demands, I was left with two options only. One, to order the marchers to move ahead and take control of parliament and the second to wait for the government’s call for negotiations,” Dr Qadri told reporters at a press conference held at the TMQ central secretariat in Model Town.

He said he finally decided to choose the second option, giving a last chance to the government to come to the negotiation table till 3pm in order to foil bids of those who actually wanted to derail democracy.

“But as I was well aware of the government plans, I didn’t order the marchers to take control of parliament despite knowing the facts,” he said.

He said that 6,000 police personnel sent by the Punjab government planned to disperse the marchers by force. Thousands of others deputed by the federal government were of the view that they should step aside in case the protesters began moving to the parliament building.

He said that after he gave a final ultimatum of 3pm to the government, the ruling coalition parties contacted him for negotiation.

“In the meanwhile I decided to achieve whatever beneficial for the people of Pakistan. And later during talks I succeeded in getting all of my demands accepted by the government,” he claimed.

Talking of reports about his Canadian nationality, refugee status and departure to Canada and summoning by the Royal Canadian Court for violating the oath, he termed these absolutely false and baseless.

Mr Qadri showed his documents verifying his legal status about his landed immigration of Canada on March 31, 1999 and award of Canadian passport and nationality to him after he resigned from the National Assembly membership in 2005.

“My name mentioned on Pakistani as well as Canadian passports is Tahirul Qadri and not Abdul Shakoor Qadri. I neither sought for refugee status in Canada on the pretext of receiving threats from Lashkar-i-Jhangvi or Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan. I got immigration and Canadian passport being a religious leader in accordance with rules and regulations,” he said.

He accused Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif of allocating Rs3 billion to launch a false and baseless propaganda for his character assassination.

“Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif, I know you better than anyone in the world. You were the people who once carried me on your shoulders to Ghaar-i-Hira just to express your love and devotion to my ideology. Stop your propaganda against me,” he said.

Dr Qadri also criticised some of the religious parties supporting the PML-N and accused them of committing corruption in the name of enforcing Sharia in the country.

Talking about Imran Khan, he said he had asked the government’s negotiating team to insert the name of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf in the Islamabad declaration in order to get Mr Khan engaged in the process of deciding about nomination of the caretaker prime minister.

“Although the PTI didn’t respond positively even though I invited Imran twice to join my long march, I felt that Imran should be consulted on this important issue. But due to some concerns expressed by the team members, the PTI was not included in the declaration,” he said.

He said his political party, Pakistan Awami Tehrik, had yet to decide about taking part in next general elections.