Rebel surrenders: Hashmi retracts statements about Nawaz

PTI President gives clarifications as he renounces the title of ‘a rebel’ .

MULTAN: In a thrilling press conference held at his residence in Multan, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) President Javed Hashmi said he doesn’t want to be known as a ‘rebel’ anymore because Pakistan’s politics doesn’t deserve it.

“I have called Nawaz Sharif my leader and I am right to call him so because I have worked under him; but for Imran Khan, I used the titles of ‘great leader and visionary’, who, by any standard of the world, have no comparison with a simple leader like Nawaz Sharif,” he clarified.

He said, “I cannot betray my people, my family and my voters; so I take back the statement which I made before all the people of Pakistan.”

Hashmi said PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi was wrong in calling that statement a slip of tongue. “It was not a slip of my tongue when I called Nawaz Sharif my leader,” he added.

The PTI president said it was not about bearing criticism; but the event had made him aware of the patience of his leadership. “Taking back my words won’t change the status of Nawaz Sharif. He will remain a leader and the reality should be accepted wholeheartedly,” Hashmi added.

He said Imran and Nawaz both could not give him anything as he does not need any lucrative posts from anyone.

Calling the prime minister maiden speech a failure, Hashmi said Nawaz Sharif had only created frustration among the people of Pakistan.

Hashmi had said on the floor of the National Assembly that “Nawaz Sharif has been and will remain my leader”. PTI leaders and its young supporters were incensed by Hashmi’s statement.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2013.