PESHAWAR: PML-N Khyber Pakhtunkhwa senior vice president Ikhtiyar Wali Khan has said PTI chairman Imran Khan is a major hurdle to the progress and development of the country.

He asked the PTI chief to stop playing the politics of confrontation for national development.

Addressing a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, the PML-N leader said the PTI’s call for the Nov 2 agitation was meant to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project and other major development projects.

He said Imran Khan was the ‘master of U-turn’ and that he’d announced the Islamabad lockdown plan after the failure of the 2014 sit-in.

Mr. Ikhtiyar Wali said the PTI was playing the politics of agitation to gain power.

He said a conspiracy was being hatched to sabotage the multibillion dollar CPEC project at the cost of national interests.

Flanked by PML-N activists from Nowshera district including Ghulam Gul and Engineer Shakeel, Mr. Ikhtiyar Wali said PTI chief Imran Khan’s dream to become the prime minister would never realise.

“Imran Khan’s attitude is non-serious. His agenda is to score political points against rivals. He’ll never be able to become the country’s prime minister,” he said.

The PML-N leader said PM Nawaz Sharif was a popular leader and that the opposition’s politics against him on the issue of Panama Papers won’t succeed.

He said his party believed in development and progress instead of sit-ins and street politics unlike the PTI, which wanted anarchy and political instability in the country.

Mr. Ikhtiyar Wali invited Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to come to Nowshera district on Nov 2 and address the party’s public meeting.

He said the PM was ready for accountability.

The PML-N leader said his party had given the chance to the PTI to form government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but the latter had miserably failed to deliver during the last three years in the province.

He said no change had taken place in the life of the people in the province as promised by PTI chairman Imran Khan during the 2013 elections.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2016