CHAKWAL: Pakistan Teheek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Javed Hashmi here on Sunday asked the rulers to relinquish power.

Mr Hashmi arrived here to mobilise the party workers and other people for the August 14 long march on Islamabad. He also attended a workers’ convention at the residence of PTI district president Raja Yassir Humayun Sarfraz. The president of the party’s Punjab chapter, Ejaz Chaudhry, and others were also present.

“We gave one year to the government, we went to court and also put our demands in the parliament but to no avail,” Mr Hashmi said.

“The parliament is a rubber stamp and everyone sitting there knows they did not reach there through people’s votes but through other means,” he maintained.

Lashing out at the rulers, he said poverty was increasing in the country and life had become hard for the common man. Therefore, the rulers should quit and go away, he added.

“Today the common citizens’ voice is neither heard in a police station nor in a tehsil office.” He said no country can progress where laws are trampled and important decisions taken without merit.

Speaking on the occasion, Ejaz Chaudhry said the current system only needed a last push. “No minister and no officer would be able to thwart our long march on August 14,” he maintained. “The people of this country are hard working and only need an honest and hardworking leader.”

Raja Yassir Sarfraz urged the people to join the long march. “I request you to join Imran Khan who is set to free you from the clutches of the plunders.”

Pir Shaukat Hussain Karooli, a local leader, said people’s mandate was stolen in the 2013 elections due to massive rigging and “we are marching towards Islamabad for the rights of the people.”

“The only solution to the country’s problems is free and fair elections,” said Ali Nasir Bhatti, another local leader of the PTI.

Published in Dawn, Aug 4th, 2014