LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan has assured the business community representatives that they would be taken on board in policy-making if his party forms the government after the election.

Speaking to traders in an event at a hotel earlier on Thursday, he said PTI had envisioned minimising sales and withholding taxes in a bid to attract foreign investment.

Read: Has Imran Khan's moment arrived?

Meanwhile, in his election campaign in Lahore on Thursday, Imran Khan addressed five public meetings in different constituencies in the city. His schedule of public meetings was somehow disturbed due to rain. However, the respective candidates hurriedly made arrangements. In one case, the venue was changed as the rainwater had inundated the actual venue.

Addressing the meetings, the PTI chief vowed that the weak and have-nots would be uplifted in Naya Pakistan after the election. He asserted he would be in Lahore till the election campaign ends as ‘Lahore decides the fate of Punjab and Punjab eventually decides the fate of Pakistan’.

‘Lahore decides fate of Punjab and Pakistan’

Imran Khan said he had tried to end the divide of haves and have-nots in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during his party’s tenure. He said the poor families were given health cards worth Rs540,000 for quality treatment in any private sector hospital.

“The public schools were reformed and thousands of students from the private sector switched over to public schools. The reformation of KP police helped in curbing terrorism.”

Chiding former chief minister and PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif, Mr Khan said a corrupt leader could never be the guardian of the poor.

“Mr Sharif spent most of Punjab’s development budget in Lahore and that too in selected areas and grabbed commission.”

The PTI chief reiterated his stance that he would never compromise and make alliance with the PPP even if he would have to sit in the opposition.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2018