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LAHORE: The crowd was large, the atmosphere was charged, but the PTI tsunami in Lahore brought almost nothing new to the protest table.
Reiterating points that have been raised many times over the last 45 days, PTI leaders and Chairman Imran Khan delivered speeches on Sunday that meandered from personal narratives to catchy anti-government slogans, but offered little in the way of substance or strategy, beyond the announcement that yet more protests would be held – this time in Mianwali and Multan.
Awami Muslim League President Sheikh Rasheed and PTI's Shah Mehmood Qureshi took potshots at the government and Nawaz Sharif, working the crowd for the moment thousands of the PTI faithful had been waiting for: Imran Khan's "very important" speech, which turned out to be a rehash of rhetoric shared atop the red zone container over the past few weeks.
Khan told his slogan-chanting supporters that the party’s anti-government protests would continue until Nawaz Sharif resigned. He further said that Sharif should resign till a probe into election rigging charges were completed. He added that he would apologise if his rigging allegations were proven wrong.
The PTI chairman said that a case had been initiated against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for lying on the floor of parliament. Khan claimed that this was not the first time Nawaz had lied and added that he (Sharif) had previously lied about an agreement with former president General Pervez Musharraf but the deal had later been exposed by a Saudi prince.
He also said that according to the Election Commission of Pakistan, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) computers were shut down after the victory speech of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as alleged by Khan on May 11.
Imran also alleged that Returning Officers had issued hand-written poll results without actual counting. He claimed the Returning Officers had been under the control of former chief justice of Pakistan Justice (r) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as part of the rigging effort.
Khan further said that the ECP had not issued form XIV on its website, and a failure to do so suggested the election commission was involved in poll-rigging along with Nawaz Sharif and Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Khan announced that the party’s next rally would be held in Mianwali on Thursday, followed by Multan.
