ISLAMABAD: With just a week to go before the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s promised show of strength in the capital, the ruling party has ramped up its rhetoric against Imran Khan and his party.

Leading the verbal assault, once again, is the government’s soft-spoken spokesperson, Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid, who has now accused Mr Khan of “inciting his party workers to violence”.

The PTI chairman is known to shoot from the hip and had said many things that he probably wished to take back now, the minister said. “Given all the things he has been saying about the Americans and Chinese, he is now busy clarifying his position,” Mr Rashid said, referring to Mr Khan’s meetings with the ambassadors of both countries. The PTI leader had a detailed sitting with US Ambassador Richard Olsen on Saturday and met the Chinese Ambassador on Sunday.

Also read: Pakistanis must stand up for their rights on Nov 30: Imran

Mr Khan has said several times that he doesn’t like meeting foreigners; so would he care to shed some light on these meetings, the information minister asked, rhetorically. “Why do you (Imran Khan) say things that you have to justify afterwards?”

The PTI chairman’s back-to-back meetings with envoys from the two countries that have historically had a key role in the country’s internal and external affairs, has set the rumour mill churning. Given the upcoming rally on Nov 30, many are speculating that the government may have sought the help of these two ‘friendly’ countries to talk Mr Khan into coming back to the negotiation table.

Others argue that given Mr Khan’s string of major public gatherings in major cities of the country, the ambassadors of both countries – as part of their jobs – wanted to know what was on his mind.

When approached for comment, PTI spokesperson Dr Shireen Mazari told Dawn, “The US envoy has been asking for this meeting for a week and the chairman only meets them (the envoys) when they ask for a meeting.”

She gave the same response when asked about the Chinese ambassador’s meeting with PTI leaders, insisting, “We don’t need these meetings with Ambassador Olsen or other envoys.”

When asked what was discussed during these meetings, a senior PTI office-bearer told Dawn that Mr Khan reiterated his stance that he wanted a transparent probe into the results of the 2013 general elections, which the PTI maintained were heavily rigged in favour of the ruling party.

At the same time, Mr Khan explained to the visiting envoys that his protest had nothing extra-constitutional about them and that his detractors were wrongly accusing him of trying to send the government home through illegal means.

During his tirade on Sunday, the information minister accused the PTI chairman of misusing the aircraft of a private-public company. The minister claimed that the plane was owned by a company called JDW, which was in the sugar business.

PTI Secretary General Jahangir Tareen has minority holdings — nearly 30 per cent shares — in the company, but using the company plane for his party chairman, the minister said, was in violation of rules under the Companies’ Ordinance.

The information minister also told reporters that apart from using the plane for political purposes since 2012, Mr Tareen had not reported the expenditures incurred in JDW’s books. Referring to the Companies’ Ordinance, the minister added that no trading company could provide financial assistance to a political party or politicians and if found guilty, its directors could be put behind bars.

In response, Mr Tareen released a statement saying that whenever the plane in question was used by the PTI chairman, “I personally afforded its expenditures from my own pocket.”

Published in Dawn, November 24th , 2014