PTI-Musharraf alliance?: Decision after due deliberation, says Qureshi

PTI vice chief says he has differences with Zardari, respect for his father.

MULTAN: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that a decision about forming an alliance with former president Pervez Musharraf will be taken after considering the circumstances.

Musharraf, who formed a party by the name of All Pakistan Muslim League in 2010, has announced that he will return to Pakistan in January 2012.

“People from every political party are joining the PTI,” Qureshi said while speaking to the media on Sunday. “PTI is not just a trend.

It also represents an ideology against the status quo,” he added.

Qureshi said if the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz decided to resign from the parliament the government would be left with no option but to call early election. However, he said, the PTI was in no hurry to gain power.

“I pray that whoever comes in power in the future is loyal to Pakistan,” he said.

He criticised the government and said that some of its members would try to leave the country as soon as they were out of power. But, he added, the PTI would ensure that no one escaped accountability.

Qureshi said the PTI’s recent rally in Karachi had once and for all settled the difference between a government-funded gathering and one that inspired people. “PTI is the only party with the potential to address the grievances of Pakistani people,” he said.

Qureshi said his differences with President Asif Ali Zardari did not prevent him from acknowledging the generosity of the president’s late father, Hakim Ali Zardari. “He [Hakim] always remained respectful towards me and my family,” he said.

Qureshi earlier spoke to a public gathering as part of ceremonies on the second day of Bahauddin Zakariya’s urs. “I can abandon worldly relations but will never overlook responsibilities inherited from my forefathers,” he told the gathering.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd,  2012.