ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan ruled out on Saturday return to sit-in and said that he would announce the party’s next plan on Sunday (today).

Speaking at a news conference at his Bani Gala residence, he also rejected the possibility of rejoining the National Assembly before finalisation of the report of the proposed judicial commission to investigate alleged rigging in the 2013 general elections.

Meanwhile, the government has once again contacted the PTI and expressed the desire to resume talks with it.

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PTI Secretary General Jahangir Tareen told Dawn that he had received a message from Finance Minister Ishaq Dar that the government wanted to resume the negotiations and he wanted to meet PTI leaders on Sunday. “We are ready to receive him,” Mr Tareen said.

“The sit-in stage has passed. We will... announce our next strategy tomorrow. The situation prevailing in the country demands national unity. We did not want to provide any opportunity to anyone to say that we are becoming a hurdle in the war against terrorists,” Mr Khan responded when asked if the party has any plan to give another call for a sit-in.

The press conference was held to announce joining of the PTI by two PML-Q members from Punjab -- Riaz Fatiana and Saeed Virk.

The PTI chairman again asked the government to form an independent judicial commission having the powers to summon returning officers.

Again, he accused former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and former Supreme Court judge Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday of helping the PML-N win the elections in Punjab.

“... Justice Ramday had a big hand in the victory of the PML-N in Punjab. And (former) Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was also involved in it,” said Mr Khan, who had already received defamation notices from the two former judges.

He said that he had come to know that the missing Forms 14 and 15 for NA-122 Lahore constituency had now been found. “These forms should have been in the polling bags. From where these forms have been recovered,” he asked, “Is it not a violation of the election rules.

APS PROTEST: About the protest of the parents of the slain students during a visit to the Army Public School (APS), Imran Khan said that he wanted to visit the school earlier, but was stopped from doing so and denied permission from army.

“On the whole, we all are responsible. The APS was specifically under the army’s control, and not the KP government’s,” he added.

FUEL SHORTAGE: The PTI chief also took the government to task for petrol shortage in Punjab, terming it a result of “infighting on receiving commission.”

He said earlier the rulers used to say that the country was facing economic problems because of the PTI’s sit-in. He claimed that the government had started imposing surcharges on electricity and petrol as it had come out of the pressure the PTI had put on it through the sit-in.

Mr Khan expressed the opinion that the government should have more money to but oil because of 60 per cent reduction in its price in the international market.

In its election campaign, he said, the PML-N had said that it had experienced people in its team but now the nation was suffering in the hands of the so-called experienced team. He said the “governance has totally collapsed.”

PTI MNA Asad Umar said that people were justified in questioning the government in solving their other major problems as it could not even ensure provision of electricity, gas and petrol to them.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2015

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