My own party conspired against me in 2018 polls: Qureshi

Former foreign minister and senior Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi has claimed that his own party dealt a blow to prospects of his victory in the election of Punjab Assembly’s PP-217 constituency during the last general elections in 2018.

“It was my own party that conspired against me in the 2018 elections,” he said while addressing a public gathering held on Wednesday in connection with the upcoming by-poll in Multan.

Qureshi said he would mince no words as he had also categorically told PTI Chairman Imran Khan that the reason behind his defeat in the 2018 election was his party.

“The situation in Punjab would not be as it is today if Shah Mahmood had been an MPA from here.”

He asserted that if you do not have this way of thinking then July 17 – the date for the by-election- will also pass and it will not make any difference.

“People of PP-217 wake up… what difference did it make to me I became the foreign minister… but it made a difference for you, Multan and South Punjab,” he remarked.

On the other hand, Zain Qureshi son of Shah Mehmood Qureshi clarified that his father said this in the context of Jahangir Khan Tareen and Aleem Khan.

It is pertinent to mention that in 2018, when the former foreign minister lost the provincial assembly to independent candidate Sheikh Salman Naeem, rumours were rife that Jahangir Tareen had a hand in defeating him in the polls.

Meanwhile, Salman Naeem joined the PTI and was part of the Jahangir Tareen group after winning the election.