Protest against govt: ‘Imran kept PTI leadership in the dark’

PTI ex-president says Imran ignored advice of party colleagues

ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf president Javed Hashmi on Sunday said party chief Imran Khan had the habit of ‘taking solo flights and keeping the entire central leadership in the dark’.

“I tried my best to remove shortcomings in PTI because I could not sit dumb and deaf over overtures taken by Imran Khan,” he said during a media interview. Lambasting the PTI chairman for making the entire party leadership hostage to his self-driven wishes and the sit-in fiasco, Hashmi added that Imran had himself divulged information about his meeting with Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Dr Tahirul Qadri in London.



“When I said that such things would pave the path for martial law in the country, Imran told me that the PML-N government would be packed before their march to Islamabad,” he said.

According to Hashmi, Imran was confident the chief justice would initiate suo motu proceedings against the government, pack it and establish a government of technocrats. He said the main objective was not to obtain Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s resignation, but to press for the demand of setting up an impartial election commission. He added that Imran did not take the party leadership into confidence over such demand.

According to Hashmi, Imran’s decision to call for civil disobedience was rejected by the party leadership but he made the call anyway. Other decisions regarding resignations of PTI lawmakers and march towards the Prime Minister’s House were also met with resistance but the PTI chief did not pay heed to the party leadership, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2014.