Major success: Imran asks party workers to prepare for polls

Says tribunal’s decision in NA-126 has vindicated PTI’s standpoint

KOHISTAN:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Tuesday asked his party workers to prepare for fresh elections which he reckons will be held later this year.

Addressing a public gathering in Dobair village of Lower Kohistan on Tuesday, he said the PTI has succeeded in taking a prized scalp of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the NA-125 constituency, adding that the rest of the team will soon collapse.

On Monday, an election tribunal unseated Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique, a key member of the PML-N cabinet, after declaring his election from the NA-125 constituency null and void and ordered a re-election in the same constituency within 60 days. The tribunal’s ruling came in response to a petition filed by a PTI candidate.

Imran claimed that the election tribunal’s decision had vindicated the PTI’s standpoint that rigging had shaped the PML-N’s electoral victory in 2013. “We raised our voice against rigging in May 2013 general elections but no one listened to us. And this forced us to take to the streets,” Imran said in reference to his 126-day long sit-in and marches in Islamabad and other cities.

The PTI chief said when his party returned to parliament after the government formed a judicial commission to probe rigging allegation in the May 2013 polls, the PML-N tried to humiliate him and his party members.

Imran said he is fighting against the “Pharaohs of the time”, who, he said, have been usurping resources and rights of poor people of the country.

“In Karachi, there is another type of Pharaoh, but I am committed to liberating the country and its people from these elements,” he said in an oblique reference to the MQM. “I urge the youth to stand by truth with courage,” he added.

Imran Khan, whose party rules in K-P, announced that it would develop a national park at Suput Valley of Kohistan, which, he said, has a great potential for tourism. He said the project will offer new job opportunities to locals, who have to leave their district in search of livelihood.

“The PTI will also bring investment for small hydro units and other economic activities,” he said.

Imran also warned the timber mafia that stern action would be taken against them if they did not desist from causing harm to local forests.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2015.