ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Wednesday alleged that his long-time political rival, former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was using absconders for running his election campaign.

Addressing a press conference at the National Press Club, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, who is contesting the elections in NA-59 and NA-63 against Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, alleged that some 100 absconders of the Chauntra police station are running Chaudhry Nisar’s election campaign.

He asked that if these absconders were not associated with the former interior minister, then why had they not been arrested during the PML-N tenure. However, he did not share any evidence of the involvement of absconders in his rival’s campaign.

After parting ways with PML-N, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is contesting the elections for NA-59 and NA-63 and two provincial assembly seats as an independent candidate. PTI has fielded Ghulam Sarwar Khan on both these National Assembly seats.

The PTI leader said Mr Nisar has said he has no source of income other than his salary as a parliamentarian and yet, he claimed, the former interior minister has purchased two plots in Defence Housing Authority.The PTI leader also alleged that patwaris have been financing Chaudhry Nisar’s meetings and that all patwaris of the Rawalpindi district should be transferred.

“[Nisar] has been using patwaris and the police for political purposes,” Mr Ghulam Sarwar alleged, and that patwaris have been financing Chaudhry Nisar for a long time.

He claimed that during the tenure of the PML-N, all postings and transfers of patwaris and revenue officers could not be made without Chaudhry Nisar’s recommendations.

He also alleged that the former interior minister has been using the police force for security purposes.

“Only former prime ministers and presidents are entitled to have official security. Everyone else has to hire private security,” he said.The PTI leader alleged that the legacy of the Sharif brothers remains in the Punjab bureaucracy. He condemned the arrest of PML-N candidate for NA-59, Qamarul Islam Raja, saying the major leaders should have been arrested first.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2018