CHITRAL: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Thursday said he would continue to raise voice against the formation of the PTI government through electoral rigging and couldn’t be cowed into silence by threats.

Addressing the Khatm-i-Nabuwwat Conference at the Parade Ground here, the JUI-F leader said he was being asked by certain quarters to keep mum about manipulation of the people’s mandate in the last general elections but he would continue to raise voice even at the cost of his life.

He said he had been trained on how to fight but not on cowing into silence by threats.

Mr Fazl said the PTI had come to power after the general elections were rigged.

He said the people’s mandate was changed to install a puppet government that didn’t have the capability to manage the state’s affairs and therefore, every field of governance was heading towards retrogression.

The JUI-F chief said bad governance had stressed out everyone from workers to traders to teachers to doctors and lawyers.He said everyone in the country stood convinced that their mandate was stolen to impose the incompetent PTI on them.

Claims all fields of governance heading to retrogression

Mr Fazl said the government’s acts went against both Constitution and the law.

He said the country’s economic growth rate had plunged below zero during the last two years and it was a matter of concern as a country with economic crisis couldn’t survive.

The JUI-F leader said the ruling PTI had abandoned the last government’s mega projects and had come up with the idea of selling eggs, hens and calves to revitalise economy and fight poverty.

“I can’t expect more than this from the PTI government keeping in view its incapability,” he said.

Mr Fazl said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project launched by the last government to turn around the socioeconomic conditions of the people had been rolled back by the PTI government, so Chitral and Dir districts that were located on the proposed alternative CPEC route suffered.

He criticised the government over the ‘failure’ of foreign policy and said the country had strained relations with China, Saudi Arabia and many Islamic countries.

The JUI-F leader complained that India had also annexed the occupied Kashmir by changing its special status.

He asked the people to ready themselves for a ‘final showdown against the government to save the country and its poor people’.

Earlier, JUI-F provincial emir Maulana Attaur Rehman and district emir Maulana Abdur Rehman also addressed the gathering.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2020