HYDERABAD: Jamaat-i-Islami emir Senator Siraj ul Haq has said that “false promises and announcement” had exposed Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government in its three-and-a-half years of rule and it has lost credibility due to its ineptness.

Speaking to the media in Matiari on Sunday, he said PTI’s boat was stuck in political vortex.

He said that there was no difference between any of the three major parties — PTI, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). All these parties were fighting for powers and not for the masses, for the release of Dr Afia Siddiqui from the United States, for education of poor people’s children or for the liberation of Indian-occupied Kashmir, he said.

He said that it was only the JI that could emancipate the country from them, and predicted that 2023 would be the year of JI’s success. “JI will rid the country of this US and British system of subservience,” he promised.

Referring to PTI and PPP marches in the country, he remarked that both the parties should, instead, have shared their performance with the masses. “They are busy mudslinging … accusing each other of being plunderers … and JI believes their allegations are true,” he remarked.

The JI emir said that people of Pakistan would have to decide now that they did not have to rally around these political parties which had been usurping their rights for 74 years. “The system in Pakistan could not be changed as long as these princes and princesses were elected to power,” he said.

He said his party had launched a campaign against price-hike, unemployment and interest-based banking in the country and people were supporting it. The JI was sharing its agenda of prosperous Pakistan with the masses and would field honest and competent candidates in elections, he added.

He condemned the Friday blast in a Peshawar mosque and sympathised with victims’ families.

Earlier, addressing an Ulema and Mashaikh conference in the town, Senator Haq said that the JI was struggling for a just system in the country and urged the participating religious scholars and leaders of the Sarhandi Jamaat to help make Pakistan a citadel of peace.

Pir Ghulam Mujaddid Sarhandi told the audience that price-hike had made people’s life miserable while political forces were busy holding marches against each other.

Sindh JI emir Mohammad Hussain Mahanti was among the others who spoke at the conference.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2022