Taking aim: I will fight till the last ball, says Imran

Vows he won’t abandon the people

SIALKOT:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan on Monday said that he will never accept defeat and will continue his struggle against corruption ‘till the last ball’.

After leading a large election rally though Paris road before addressing the gathering at VIP Ground in Sialkot on Monday, Imran said that the public were being exploited by the incumbent rulers, but he will not abandon the people and face up to the corrupt rulers.

The rally was held in connection with the third and final phase of local government elections in Punjab.

“Rulers of today have assets worth billions of rupees in foreign banks,” he said as he repeated his popular refrain. He reiterated that the rulers had taken heavy loans at the expense of the people and that the country cannot progress as long as corrupt leaders remained at the helm.

The PTI chief commended the people of Sialkot for building roads, an airport and a dry-port on their own as he criticised the government for squandering Rs18 billion on Metro Bus and Orange train projects in the last two years.



“Pakistani system discourages merit, which then sees our youth leave the country for better opportunities abroad,” the PTI chairman said, adding that Pakistanis had flourished in places where there was justice.

Without providing specific examples, Imran claimed that in other countries any one implicated in a case is not given a position of authority in the government, but in Pakistan leaders like Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, who have numerous cases pending against them, get elected to top slots.

Claiming that PTI was one of the largest parties in the country today, Imran challenged the PML-N to draw enough supporters to fill just half the ground.

After his speech concluded, Imran left in a helicopter while provincial organiser Chadhry Sarwar carried on with the rally till Jinnah House.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st,  2015.