GUJRAT: The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) for the first time participated in any long march or agitation activity of its ally Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) since joining hands against the PML-N in Punjab.

The PTI’s long march was accorded a warm welcome by a large number of PML-Q supporters at Ramtalai Chowk of the hometown of Chief Minister Parvez Elahi on Friday afternoon.

The PML-Q workers first gathered at the Zahoor Elahi House at Nutt, the native village of the Chaudhrys, where former federal minister Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain and his son Moosa Elahi received the convoys and entertained their participants with food and drinks.

Later, a large convoy of buses, vans, cars and motorbikes departed for GTS Chowk on the GT Road where PML-Q MNA Hussain Elahi received the long march, being led by Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Dr Yasmin Rashid, Hammad Azhar and others.

However, as per the schedule, the PML-Q convoys also reached the GTS Chowk and joined the PTI workers to listen to the live speech of Imran Khan through video link in the evening.

Qureshi and other senior PTI leaders had earlier reached Gujrat from Wazirabad on Thursday night and stayed at Kunjah House, the residence of Moonis Elahi.

The PML-Q had announced to accord a reception to the PTI long march in Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin, the strong bastions of the Chaudhrys. However, the party has not issued any instructions to the workers for joining the long march up to Rawalpindi.

During PTI’s previous long marches in August 2014 and May this year, the PML Q mainly stayed away from participating in it but only extended moral support to the PTI.

The huge publicity boards carrying the photos of Imran Khan, Parvez Elahi, Moonis Elahi, Wajahat Hussain and Hussain Elahi were displayed all around the route and at the GTS Chowk.

The participants of the PML-Q were also carrying their party flags. Due to the participation of PML-Q in the march, the gathering at GTS Chowk is being termed better than of Wazirabad on Thursday where PTI had resumed its march after taking the break for a week.

The long march will now resume from Lalamusa on Saturday (today), then from Kharian on Sunday whereas on Monday it will start from Mandi Bahauddin city and then reach Sara-i-Alamgir on Tuesday.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2022