Campaign galore: Imran draws a lesson from World War II

Says nation-building is more important than building roads.

KASUR:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan on Monday dilated upon his education and health policies, lashed out at his key rivals and gave the crowd a lesson in history.

“Japan and Germany were devastated after the [second world] war, but stabilised within 10 years because of strong leaderships.” Driving home his point, he said that the PTI will put Pakistan on the road to a similar, fast-paced recovery.

Speaking at a rally in Kasur, Imran said instead of building roads, it is important to first build the nation, alluding to the PML-N’s motorway and Metro Bus schemes.  “One should invest in people, education and health rather than spending the whole budgets on building roads.”

“Once people unite as a nation, they build roads and infrastructure on their own.”

Expanding on his party’s plans to revive the education system, Imran said the PTI government will implement a common syllabus across the country and raise the education budget to five times the current figure.

Regarding health, Imran said that PTI’s plan was to build a network of hospitals all over Pakistan where every citizen will have free access to medical facilities. Rallies were also held in Illahabad and Multan. Apart from Imran, they were addressed by PTI leaders such as former foreign minister Khursheed Mahmud Kasuri, Fouzia Kasuri, Sardar Muhammad Hussain Dogar, Muzaffar Hasan Shah Kazmi, Sardar Fakhar Ali Sardar, Javed Ashiq Dogar and Nadeem Haroon Khan.

While addressing the crowd at both Illahabad and Kasur, Khursheed Mehmud Kasuri said that he had strongly protested the few drone strikes that occurred during his tenure as foreign minister and had arranged for the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.

PML-N under fire

Nawaz Sharif’s tenures have only increased poverty, while the education and health systems have worsened instead of improving, said Imran.

“He claims to have been a cricket player, adding that he would have been as bad a player as bad a politician he is.”

Imran alleged that nation-building suffered because the Sharif brothers had invested the whole of Punjab’s budget in building three roads in Lahore. Khan claimed he has a dry cleaning machine and would put the “bad PTI politicians” in that machine to “clean them.”

Multan meeting

The Kasur gathering was followed by one in Multan’s Sports Ground. Here, the PTI chief lashed out against JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and called him a “fanatic”.

“He has always sold religion in the name of politics and destroyed the country’s image.”

Finally, on a concluding note, the PTI chief lauded the Pakistani media, saying that it was instrumental in the creation of ‘Naya Pakistan’, and therefore, the PTI “will not tolerate any attack on the media and its independence.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2013.