Dharna provided training, real match is now: Imran

PTI chief says party will lead critical anti-corruption movement

LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan has said that the coming days will define history in Pakistan as his party vowed to press ahead with its movement against corruption in the country after Eid.

Addressing party workers at an iftar in Lahore on Tuesday, Imran said they will lead a movement against corruption in the country. He said this movement is critical since the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has been claiming that corruption was the main issue for the country for the past 20 years.



The PTI chief added that they have taken the matter to the Election Commission of Pakistan and will approach the courts and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) as well.

He stressed that the party will also come out on to the streets. In the coming days he said he will appoint as organisers those who will unite the party and provide leadership.

“Dharna provided us with training, this is the real match now,” Imran said referring to the four-month long sit-in his party staged outside parliament in 2014.



Imran went on to discuss qualities of a leader adding that they unite, not divide.

“Leadership is missing in Pakistan,” Imran said while taking a pot shot at Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who is currently in London recuperating from a heart surgery. The PTI chief went on to say that the PM was scared of his own people which is why his vacations and medical treatment are done abroad. “Someone who has no credibility can’t lead his own people,” Imran said adding that a leader needs to be honest and upright.

Imran, whose party has filed a petition in the ECP to disqualify the prime minister for concealing assets revealed by the Panama Papers, said that had his name appeared in those leaks and he subsequently failed to come clean about it, his party would have abandoned him.

The PTI chief also took a swipe at Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai for his recent remarks in which he called Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa a part of Afghanistan.



Imran also lectured his party on the ills of forming ‘groupings’.  “Groupings negate your quality of being a leader,” Imran said as he asked party members to stay true to the ideology of the party.

Mocking the groups which sprung up within the PTI, Imran said it was the ideology that bonded party workers together. He urged party members to uphold merit and avoid favouritism.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2016.