As local Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) workers chanted a two-decade-old slogan of “Aik bahadur admi, Hashmi Hashmi!” former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) president Javed Hashmi hinted that he may join the party as he had formally resigned from the PTI’s presidency on Wednesday.
“I do not want to be a part of a party that is conspiring to derail democracy in the country,” he said during a press conference at his residence. “The PML-N is better than the undemocratic PTI, which is running on the planned script of the army generals and their companions,” the veteran politician claimed.
Local leaders in Multan who have supported Hashmi for nearly three decades in politics joined him during the press conference, including those who publicly disassociated from him during the last two years of his time with PTI. Some welcomed him with chants of “Baghi, baghi” and PML-N district president Bilal Butt announced that the party will appoint Hashmi president of PML-N’s south Punjab wing.
Hashmi said he intends to contest elections on the PML-N’s ticket wherever Shah Mehmood Qureshi will contest polls. PML-N candidate Sarwat Khan has stepped down in order to allow Hashmi to contest this seat. “PTI is no more than a tool of the military establishment and a third force against the ideology of patriotism and democracy in the country,” Hashmi said.
He said he is thankful to the PML-N leadership “for helping at a time when no one understands my sacrifice for democracy”. “The PML-N has honoured my services and sacrifices by supporting me in the upcoming NA-149 polls,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2014.
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It is good, he has decided to quit the party deemed as a tool of establishment. The fact that he joined Nawaz Sharif in 1985, who at the time was a well-known puppet of the then military ruler Gen Zia should considered as a 'typo' error in his profile.
Dear Hashmi Sahib
thank you for what you told us. Two years back when PMLN sidelined you, it was PTI and Imran Khan who gave you the respect you deserved. We all backed you because you had sacrificed for democracy but now we are disappointed. If you call today's democracy a democracy then we better support dictatorship at least they gave some importance to the masses.You failed us and you failed the people of Pakistan.You have changed your stance hundred times in a week or so and we no more trust your words. No matter you win on NA149 or lose it, you lost our respect. Disappointing is the word that can define you.