Selection, not election: ‘Shah Mahmood, Imran unelected leaders of PTI’

Javed Hashmi says he is considering forming a party with disheartened PTI workers.

MULTAN:

Former Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) president Javed Hashmi said on Sunday that results of the cantonment board elections had proved that the youth were disenchanted with the PTI and its politics.

“PTI chairman Imran Khan had claimed that the youth of defence were on his side,” he said. “These elections have proved that you cannot fool the public all the time.”

He said Imran Khan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Jahangir Tareen were playing with the fate of the nation.



He said though a judicial commission to probe rigging in 2013 general elections had been formed on Imran Khan’s request, he had insufficient evidence to support his claim. “Now he cannot make childish claims and must back up what he has been claiming for over two years with evidence,” he said. He said everyone would have to accept findings of the judicial commission.

He was talking to newsmen at his residence in Multan.

Hashmi said that by dissolving an intra-party election tribunal headed by Justice Wajiuddin, Imran Khan had made a huge mistake.

He said the PTI should make the report of Justice Wajihuddin’s tribunal public so that people could know about the party’s internal politics.

Hashmi said the party had offered to appoint him president unopposed but he had declined the offer. “Shah Mahmood and Imran Khan are unelected leaders of the PTI. There were no elections for those posts,” he said. He said the PTI had lost its credibility by sacking Wajihuddin.

He said he was considering putting together a new political party for disgruntled PTI workers. “These people have been disheartened by the arrogance and dictatorial attitude of the current PTI leadership,” he said.

He said he feared that the PTI would be wiped out from the political sphere by the time the PML-N completed its tenure in 2018.

He said PTI lawmakers in the national assembly were legally and morally bound to step down from their seats. He said if the speaker did not accept their resignation, he, too, was acting illegally. He said he would take up the matter to a court.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2015.