Imran openly supported Goldsmith during the London mayoral election campaign
FAISALABAD: The recently elected British-Pakistani Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has said that PTI Chairman Imran Khan should explain why he openly supported Zac Goldsmith during the recent bitter London mayoral election campaign. Sadiq Khan was born at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London, the fifth of eight children in a working class Muslim family of Pakistani immigrants. His late father, Amanullah Khan, worked as a bus driver for over 25 years. Sadiq Khan worked hard. While studying for his degree, from the age of 18 to 21, he worked on Saturdays at a department store in Sloane Square. Zac Goldsmith is the son of billionaire businessman and financier Sir James Goldsmith. He is known to be one of the wealthiest members of the British parliament, given that the bequest from his father, who died shortly after the 1997 general election in the UK with a £1.2 billion fortune, is subject to much scrutiny.
We saw during the London mayoral campaign that Goldsmith branded Khan as an extremist, terrorist sympathiser, unsafe, closet radical and a threat to Britain’s national security. Goldsmith’s attack on Khan had clear racist and Islamophobic undertones. It is amazing that Imran Khan is struggling to make a new Pakistan that is free of corruption, nepotism, extremism and racism. He always criticises Pakistani political leaders as they support their children and relatives in politics. Everyone knows that Goldsmith is the ex-brother-in-law of Imran Khan. Having this relationship, he openly supported Goldsmith during the London mayoral election campaign. Can he explain to Sadiq Khan and to the Pakistani nation on what basis and qualities did he support Goldsmith?
Engr Mansoor Ahmed
Published in The Express Tribune, June 13th, 2016.
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