SUKKUR: All arrangements have been made for Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s public meeting to be addressed by the party chief Imran Khan and other senior leaders at Lab-i-Mehran park next to Sukkur Barrage here today.

PTI Sindh leader Liaquat Ali Jatoi, flanked by the party’s Sindh president Dr Arif Alvi and others, said at a press conference at Jatoi House here on Thursday that besides Imran Khan, Awami Muslim League chief Shaikh Rashid Ahmed and senior PTI leaders Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jahangir Tareen would also deliver speeches at the “big and historic” public meeting today.

Mr Jatoi, who is also a former chief minister of Sindh, said the PTI had always stood for elimination of corruption as it believed it would bring betterment in society and ensure provision of basic facilities to general public.

He portrayed a gloomy picture of the state of affairs in Sindh and tried to rebut an allegation which, he said, was being levelled upon him by the “chairman of a political party” that Mian Nawaz Sharif had removed him as Sindh chief minister due to his alleged involvement in corruption.

In reality, Mr Sharif removed him because he wanted to bring in his favourite as new chief minister. He never went begging to Mr Sharif and it was rather Mr Sharif himself who had come to him, he said.

Dr Alvi said the Supreme Court’s decision in the Panama Papers case against Sharif family was an outcome of a consistent struggle by the PTI. “We aim to completely rid the society of the menace of corruption,” he said.

He said that it was sad that Sukkur district administration removed PTI banners from the city. “We have extended all facilities to PPP chairman to hold a public meeting in Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but sadly the gesture is not being reciprocated and it seems local PPP leadership has become baffled at our public meeting,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2017