Keep the momentum going: PTI’s struggle against rigging began in Karachi, says Qureshi

Party vice-president arrives in port city on Thursday

KARACHI:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) struggle against election riggings kicked off in Karachi last year, claimed party vice-president Shah Mehmood Qureshi here on Thursday.

“The movement against rigging started in this city, where we staged protests and called for re-polling in NA-250,” said Qureshi at Palwal House, a party office in Defence Housing Authority.

Flanked by party leaders Arif Alvi, Hafeezuddin, Smar Ali Khan and Nadir Akmal Leghari, he flew into the metropolis on Thursday. “I have come to Karachi to engage with the people here, to thank them for their sit-ins and for being politically aware,” he said.

Clad in a brown kurta, the visibly tired leader said that the four PTI parliamentarians from Sindh would soon hand in their resignations. He reiterated the party’s demands for free and fair elections and the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, adding that PTI believed in democracy.

Qureshi admitted that they had been unable to pay rural Sindh much attention earlier, but said that the first thing PTI chairman Imran Khan would do once he was free would be to come to Sindh. “A change will come in this province,” he declared.

Qureshi said that the Pakistan Peoples Party’s leadership had also accepted that the 2013 general elections were rigged, and added that the Raiwind lunch had created differences between the leadership in Punjab and Sindh.

The PTI vice president said that he and other members of the party would address the sit-in at Seaview on Thursday night, where he would also give a special message from Imran to the residents of Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2014.