LAHORE, Feb 21: The Millat Party is making efforts to change political culture of the country, infested with corruption, the party’s central information secretary says.

Brig Muhammad Yousaf (retired), talking to reporters on Thursday at the party’s central office, said that acquisition of power was not the prime goal of the party.

He said the MP wanted to bring the middle class people to the fore as they alone could change the culture and solve other problems. He said how long it took it would not matter as long as the goal was accomplished.

The MP information secretary claimed that people were joining the party in large numbers. With the passage of time, he said, public support was growing for it. The situation in Balochistan, Sindh and the NWFP, he said, was far more satisfactory than early expectations.

He claimed that some former chief ministers and ministers wanted to join the party but the MP was not opening its doors to them because of their poor reputation. He said his party was more concerned about its integrity than inducting some faces who could tarnish its public image.

Brig Yousaf did not like to name the people who had been refused entry into the MP.

He said the party’s mass mobilization campaign was in progress and the strength of the party would become obvious in March.

Answering a question, he said the MP would take an active part in the October elections. Preparations were being made in this regard. But he said it was premature to say anything about the parties with which the MP could join hands in the elections. He said a decision on the subject would be taken at an appropriate time.

He made it clear that his party would maintain its identity at all costs.

He dismissed reports that his party was trying to assume the role of what is called a king’s party.

He said MP president Farooq Leghari had not made any such effort in the past and there was no such possibility of his doing so in the future.

In his opinion, former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif stood no chance of ever returning to power. He said both of them were corrupt.

He alleged that the Sharifs had purchased votes on a large scale in the Punjab in the 1988 and 1993 elections. Brig Yousaf urged the government to introduce Arabic as a compulsory subject at all levels of education to enable people to understand the divine guidance and become good Muslims.