BAHAWALPUR: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan has threatened to launch a million man long march on Islamabad on Aug 14 if the government fails to accept within a month his demands relating to fairness of elections.

Addressing a large public meeting at a stadium here on Friday evening, he asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to reveal the names of people who had arranged his speech on the night of May 11 last year, a few hours after voting had closed in the general elections; whether the returning officers were under the Election Commission; who had rigged the polls and what role was played by former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

He alleged that the former chief justice had been rewarded with the appointment of his son as vice-chairman of the board of investment in Balochistan.

Mr Khan warned Punjab police personnel that if they stopped or assaulted his workers taking part in the march on Aug 14, he himself would “hang” them.

He accused a retired superior court judge of having set up in Lahore an election cell where the rigging had been planned and implemented.

He asked the prime minister to clarify the role of the caretaker government in the elections and punish under Article 6 of the Constitution the officers involved in poll fraud.

He demanded resignation of members of the Election Commission and said the reforms he was demanding were for the next polls which should be fair and held in a transparent manner.

The PTI chief invited all political parties to join his struggle for fair and transparent elections. He challenged the prime minister’s claim that his public meetings were creating hurdles for the country’s development.

He said Mr Sharif was the prime minister, his younger brother the Punjab chief minister, his nephew Hamza Shahbaz ‘deputy chief minister’ and his daughter controlled huge funds and one nephew was a minister of state.

He said Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had not brought $200 billion to the country from abroad.

Mr Khan regretted that the governments of Sindh and Balochistan had not come forward to welcome the people displaced from North Waziristan.

He said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government would wholeheartedly support and help the displaced people in their hour of distress.

He stressed that helping the internally displaced persons was the duty of every Pakistani.

Imran Khan said the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had not been informed prior to the launching of the army operation.

He criticised the police firing on people in Lahore’s Model Town.

The PTI chief said that one Abbas Khan had alleged in his book that Mr Sharif had recruited 25,000 people in police during 1985-92 in violation of the rule of merit and many of them were criminals.

He alleged that the PML-N government had formed a baton-wielding militant group.

He accused the Punjab police of robbing people instead of providing them security, but said that he would soon “set them right”.

According to him, there was no visible development in the country except Metro bus.

Earlier, speaking at a function in Lahore, the PTI chief said the country needed massive changes to overcome the negative indicators plaguing it.

He said the Prime Minister House and the President House were spending about Rs5 million a day and Mr Sharif’s foreign tours were costing the national exchequer Rs4.3m a day.

He alleged that the Sharif brothers had purchased two vehicles worth Rs225m; about 1,300 policemen were guarding their palace in Jati Umra and they were suspending SPs if their peacocks died.

In the international hunger index, he said, Pakistan had been placed among the bottom six countries along with Ethiopia, Niger and Sudan.

Minister’s response

Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid claimed on Friday that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had voluntarily reduced PM House’s expenditures by 40 per cent while PTI Chairman Imran Khan spent Rs377 million on his public meetings in Islamabad, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Bahawalpur, adds APP.

The amount wasted on public rallies, he said in a statement, was sufficient to feed internally displaced persons (IDPs) of North Waziristan for seven days.

Moreover, the Punjab government spent millions of rupees for security of PTI rallies. From this amount, Mr Rashid said, two new hospitals and over a dozen schools could have been built in North Waziristan. Similarly, velvet chairs were hired for public meetings and rental of Rs2,000 for each chair was sufficient to meet the daily needs of a displaced family.

The minister said that instead of taking notice of a 200pc increase in salary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister and his cabinet members, Imran Khan was making baseless allegations against others.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2014