KARAK: Awami National Party general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain has alleged that there is practically ‘civil martial law’ in the country and that Imran Khan has been imposed on people through rigged elections to get the desired decisions.

He was talking to mediapersons during a visit to Karak on Saturday night to condole the death of the mother of party’s provincial joint secretary Khursheed Khattak.

Mian Iftikhar declared that the 2018 general elections were the most rigged polls. He said they had opposed the deployment of army in the general elections and now the deployment of army in the by-election was actually mistrust over the Election Commission of Pakistan.

He termed the role of National Accountability Bureau partisan and said NAB was pursuing political vendetta instead of accountability.

He added that the bureau was putting those in prison who were not aligned with Imran Khan. The arrest of Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif spoke of the bureau’s double standards, he alleged.

The ANP leader was of the view that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was arrested before the general elections and Shahbaz Sharif was put behind bars before the by-election to get the desired results.

The nationalist leader alleged that Imran Khan was a ‘puppet’ prime minister who was ignorant even of the leaders of his own party. He claimed that about two months’ performance of the government was very poor and added that its foreign and economic policies had totally failed.

He recalled that Imran Khan was the staunch opponent of IMF loans and now his government itself had approached the Fund to take loans.

He said in the past Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had also taken loans but now the country was not able to take further loans as price hike would touch its peak.

He claimed that Pakistan had also annoyed its time-tested friend China due to utter failure of the foreign policy and added that Pakistan was not enjoying good relations with Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and India.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2018