ISLAMABAD: The PTI has decided to launch a countrywide protest campaign on Wednesday (April 13) against the removal of its government and the formation of the incoming administration, most likely to be headed by PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif.

“We are going to start a nationwide campaign from Wednesday from Peshawar,” PTI leader and former information minister Fawad Chaudhry told Dawn on Sunday.

Meanwhile, former prime minister and PTI chairman Imran Khan thanked people for coming out from across the country to support him and oppose the upcoming government.

“Thank you to all Pakistanis for their amazing outpouring of support and emotions to protest against US-backed regime change abetted by local Mir Jafars [betrayers] to bring into power a coterie of pliable crooks all out on bail. Shows Pakistanis at home and abroad have emphatically rejected this,” he said in a Twitter posting late on Sunday.

Conflicting statements emerge from party leaders over en masse resignations of MNAs

Mr Chaudhry said the ousted prime minister would address a public meeting in Peshawar on Wednesday.

He said the PTI’s core committee, which met on Sunday with Imran Khan in the chair, had decided that all party MNAs and its allies would resign after the election of the new prime minister on Monday (today).

However, another PTI leader and a former foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said the party had not made a final decision in this regard.

Earlier, while addressing a public rally in the federal capital on Sunday, Mr Chaudhry said public meetings would be held across the country, adding that nation would not accept a “corrupt and imported” government.

He said people had come out on the roads from all parts of the country on Sunday on the call of Imran Khan.

On the occasion, PTI leader Shahbaz Gill said it was a good sign that country’s courts were opened at 12am on Sunday night and questioned why the same could not happen for the people who came out of their homes against the removal of the PTI-led government.

He feared that a plot had been made to assassinate Imran Khan and to launch a “dirty” campaign against him and his family. “Fake videos will be run on social media for character assassination of Imran Khan,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2022