KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has warned that there will be a bloody revolution in the country if political forces are denied right to come to power through peaceful means.

He was speaking at a rally organised jointly by his party and the Jamaat-i-Islami here on Saturday in connection with the third phase of local government elections scheduled to be held in the city on Dec 5.

“People will no longer allow the group of 500 families to continue to suck their blood,” he remarked.

Mr Khan criticised the Election Commission of Pakistan for adopting what he called double standards while dealing with the ruling and opposition parties.

He said the ECP had restricted his movement in Islamabad and his speeches at various other places during the campaign for local government elections in recent days, but failed to stop PML-N leaders from violating its code of conduct.

Sirajul Haq declares Dec 5 as a day of change in Karachi

Mr Khan pointed out that the ECP did not intervene when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced the Rs34 billion ‘Kisaan Package’ and Rs40bn package for Gilgit-Baltistan.

He said a Rs2.5bn package was offered to people during a by-election in NA-154 constituency where

PTI leader Jahangir Tareen was a candidate, but the ECP never moved to stop PML-N’s tactics to influence voters.

“The package politics is part of pre-poll rigging” and distribution of cheques under the Benazir Income Support Programme during election campaigns was another such tactic, he said.

The PTI chief said that two FIRs had been registered against him for violating the code of conduct and more were expected to be registered today but “these FIRs are not a slur on me but on the ECP, which is destroying democracy”.

He said if PTI-JI alliance emerged victorious in the local government elections in Karachi, there would be no mafia and no land-grabbers in the “new Karachi”.

JI chief Sirajul Haq declared Dec 5 “the day of revolution in Karachi”.

“The people of Karachi will say goodbye for good to extortionists, target killers and those who used to stuff human bodies in gunny bags,” he said.

“We will turn Karachi into a city where Altaf Hussain will feel fully secure on his return,” he said sarcastically.

Earlier, Karachi Commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui said that the PTI and JI had not been granted permission for the rally. They had only informed the administration a day earlier about their plan to hold the rally, he told Dawn, adding that they were required to seek a written permission before taking out any rally.

“If they have defied the ECP code of conduct or any administrative rule, the matter would be handled as per the defined laws,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2015