Politicking: Imran Khan sees revolution in new members

Shah Mehmood’s brother joins PTI, Multan bar president likely to join today.

MULTAN: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan on Thursday described the decision of several sitting and former members of the parliament to join the PTI as a sign of the approaching revolution in the country.

“People of Pakistan no longer need to wait for a revolution. The revolution has happened. Its affects will be soon visible in the country,” Khan said at a press conference in Multan. He was accompanied by PTI vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi and his brother Mureed Hussain Qureshi, who had earlier announced his decision to join the PTI.

That the elected representatives of the people were resigning their membership of the assemblies and joining his party, Khan said, was a clear sign of a revolution underway in the country. “They have joined the PTI because they do not want to be a part of a corrupt government,” he said.

He said Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani was correct in worrying about a move against his government. Though this time, he said, the ‘conspiracy’ was being hatched by the people of the country against the corruption of the government.

If there had been a threat to the democracy, he asked, why did the prime minister conceal it from the people.

He said the government had failed to deliver on even a single promise it had made on coming to power. He said there could be no free and transparent elections as long as President Asif Ali Zardari was in power.

Khan criticised Pakistan Muslim League president Nawaz Sharif for his party’s tacit support to the government. He said had the PML-N wanted to remove the government all its parliamentarians could have resigned and forced the government to call early elections. He said the PML-N had been supporting “the PPP’s corruption on the assumption that it will be its turn after the next elections.”

Khan said that he would not become a part of any caretaker set up in the country. He said the PTI would come to power on the basis of a free and a transparent election. He said if a caretaker government was set up only those supporting the sitting government would join it. Talking about the war against terrorism, Khan said the country’s peace stood undermined for as long as there was a military operation against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. He said since the suspension of the operation there had been no terrorist attacks in the country.  He mentioned United States Vice President Joe Biden’s recent statements about the possibility of a dialogue with the Taliban and said that the US too had realised that there was no military solution to the Afghan conflict.

He said the government was seen as trying to influence the memogate case and the National Reconciliation Ordinance case proceedings underway in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

PTI vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi said his brother, Mureed Hussain, had decided to join the PTI despite an offer for the position of advisor to the president.  He said the prime minister and the president had been trying to contact Hussain till 4am in the morning to persuade him against joining the PTI.

Arbab Ali Syed, the High Court Bar Association’s Multan chapter president, is expected to announce his decision to join the PTI today (Friday).

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2011.