MIANWALI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan said on Thursday that his party had exposed what he called election rigging by the PML-N and he would ensure that its leadership did not go unpunished.

He said there was nothing wrong in raising slogans. “Even children are chanting slogans of ‘Go Nawaz go’ which is legally not punishable in a democratic society.”

Addressing a large public meeting in his hometown of Mianwali, Mr Khan said the number of people gathered there confirmed that the present system did not have popular support.

Analysts here described the meeting as the largest in Mianwali’s history. They particularly pointed out the presence of hundreds of women at the meeting in a conservative area dominated by tribal customs. There was a special enclosure for women wearing veil.

The PTI chief said farmers in the district and other parts of country had been neglected by successive governments. “Farmers are the backbone of the country and I will support them.”

He said the present regime supported industrialists and ruined farmers. He said Indian farmers were provided all kinds of facilities on nominal charges by the government, but in Pakistan farmers were facing hardships and struggling for survival.

He said farmers in Mianwali were receiving electricity bills of as much as Rs600,000 per month for their turbines. How can they survive in such a situation. A flat-rate tariff regime is the only solution to the problem.

Mr Khan said he was in favour of the local bodies system and transfer of funds and resources to the village level. Funds should not be given to MNAs and MPAs. He announced that the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would soon hold local bodies’ elections in the province.

He said his dream was to build Namal University Mianwali to meet the dire need of the area, but the project was delayed because of hindrances created by the rulers in allotment of land. He said it would be a model university and students from other parts of country would get admission here and Mianwali would become an educational hub in near future.

He called for early completion of the Cadet College Mianwali which had been shifted to some other place in the district and was still no-functional.

The PTI chief said his Islamabad sit-in would continue till the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. However, he said, he wanted the prime minister to delay his resignation because that would give him time to continue his tour and spread the message of change and ‘new Pakistan’ across the country.

Earlier, PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi congratulated the people of Mianwali on the success of the meeting and thanked them for electing Imran Khan twice from the area. It proved that Mianwali was really the hometown of Imran Khan, he said.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2014