LAHORE: Law Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan on Thursday claimed that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) had started its Azadi March with only 2,000 people.
“The government has given a free hand to PTI workers although Lahore High Court has ruled against an unconstitutional march and a sit-in Islamabad,” the minister told a press conference.
He asked PTI chairman Imran Khan to review his demand for the prime minister’s resignation and dissolution of parliament. He said Khan should also have called off his rally to avoid embarrassment.
The minister said the government had earlier anticipated that the PTI activists would stay in Islamabad for four days. “But given the poor public response, the PTI might not choose to stay in the capital for more than two days.”
He said Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Tahirul Qadri’s call for Inqilab March had attracted nearly 8,000 party workers. He said Qadri had promised to remain peaceful.
He said Qadri and Imran Khan were unable to agree on who should leave Lahore first.
“We have asked them to follow security procedures as there are threats of terrorist activity on GT Road.”
Published in The Express Tribune, August 15th,2014.
COMMENTS (12)
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This is the start of revolution! even if the Azadi march fails to conclude its results. I will still support imran warna agli bari phir zardari or nawaz.
I respected imran khan a lot before he joined hands with sheikh rasheed and shah mehmood. they literally drowned him. well if i was imran khan i would've focused on KPK more and make it a really prosperous province, then the next elections would be mine for sure. yea, i would've done something about the rigging too, but not make a huge fuss out of it like mr.khan did. ik needs to act a bit more maturely, otherwise people will perceive (or have perceived) him to be like the other corrupt leaders.
@Whatver: Agreed. The first thing he must do is get rid of Sheikh Rasheed as an advisor. The man is a self-serving anarchist.
IK lacks the three ingredients to bring a revolution: 1. Grass root network 2. Structure of organization 3. Aims and objectives
The chaos that is this Azadi March was expected and him betting the farm this will bring a revolution was lunacy. IK had the opportunity to groom a party over the remaining 5 years, but was fed ideas by idiots he recruited to go ahead with this march....the result, he has lost all political wealth and now is just a regular MNA.
Think about it, all this over 4 seats in Punjab. Ok, fine take your 4 seats...what will that change? Please don't argue about well if it were 4 seats, it could have been more. That was his first political mistake. Instead of claiming the entire election as farce, he elected to fight over just the 4 Punjab seats. Second political mistake was to go after the very same people he chose to oversee the election, creating enemies from the get-go. Third and I believe the biggest mistake was to try and grab power without a grass root effort in place. The result is obvious...people left after IK didn't show up as promised. And now that he arrived, his promises appear hollow as he left after making the speech despite saying he would not. Finally, if elections were held today, does he really think he would get an outright majority?? It would be the PPP more than likely.....so would he hold another Azadi March then?
This was his opportunity to groom and develop a sophisticated party of like-minded individuals with deep penetration in the community, but he chose to kill the goose and see if he could get it right now. You deserved this IK!
Whatever the crowd numbers were, it certainly was no where near 100,000 motorcycles and 10,00,000 people. Imran Khan is finished as a political force after this. How he could put all his eggs in one basket like this shows a total lack of maturity ! "Get me people, not breakfast" - Imran Khan
He looks familiar and sounds familiar. Nope that video was of someone else.
who are you going to believe, his words verses your eyes, videos, you ears, or your common sense. Tough decision.
Embarrassment for whom Mr. law minister? And you must be quite familiar with the word embarrassment, aren’t you?
Give him few lakhs and he will say there are 1-2 lakhs people in Azadi march. Crook guy.
Embarrassment for whom Mr. law minister? And you must be quite familiar with the word familiar, aren't you?
Eyesight checkup highly recommended.
What a shame! He still has the audacity to issue statements and come in public after the video... And apparently our law minister can't even count... that looks like 2000 to you mister unlawful minister? LOL... That's just sad and I really pity PML-N supporters but well can't expect much from a gang of gullu butts!