Former Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Fauzia Kasuri on Thursday joined Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP). She held a joint press conference with PSP chief Mustafa Kamal to announce the decision.

"PTI has been supporting and sending those leaders to assemblies who should be tried for corruption," Kasuri said, adding that she had been "feeling since 2013 that the PTI was losing its track".

"I hold no personal grudge against PTI chief Imran Khan," the former PTI leader said.

"I belong to Karachi but have I never identified myself as a migrant or Urdu speaker or a Pashtun. I call myself a Pakistani," she said.

"I am a founding member of PTI, I had high hopes and gave 23 years of my life to the party, thinking that it might bring some change," she said, adding that she could not become a part of other political parties which had a history of "exploiting the country".

"We will see if 'seasonal birds' are able to create a new Pakistan," she said, adding that PTI did a good job in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but more good work could have been done.

She made it clear that she had not asked anyone for any seat. "Imran Khan offered a reserved seat to me but I told him that I want to win a seat after contesting elections. He had also offered a Senate seat to me," Kasuri said.

Kasuri, in a resignation letter bearing a May 24 date shared on Twitter, chided PTI Chairman Imran Khan for handing over the reins of the party to those ‘electable’ people she had fought against since PTI’s inception.

Kasuri in her resignation said she had become increasingly disenchanted by the direction the party had taken since 2013 and no longer saw it as representative of the aspirations of the millions of underserved citizens seeking a change in Pakistan.

She said the party led by Imran Khan was accepting ‘electable’ persons at the cost of workers, who in some cases laid down their lives for the cause. "Sadly, this was the final nail in the coffin," she had said.

Saying she could no longer defend the party actions, she urged the chairman to accept her resignation from the party.

PSP chief Mustafa Kamal, while welcoming Kasuri to the party, said that within a short span of two years, his party has accumulated strength of 18 MPs and four MNAs.

"The Sindh chief minister is playing Sindhi card, whereas the Muttahida Qaumi Movement is using Mohajir card," he alleged.

He announced that the PSP will not enter into an electoral coalition with anyone. "We will contest elections with our own workers and our own symbol," he said adding that electoral alliance confuses workers.

"It will be our first election, so we will be stepping in very carefully," he added.

PTI Central Information Secretary Fawad Chaudhry claimed that Kasuri had resigned knowing she would be ousted from the party. She had been issued a show-cause notice for writing an article against the PTI in a newspaper.