LAHORE: Former foreign minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi says the ‘imported government’ has failed to run the system because of incompetence and lack of planning.

He was addressing a press conference on Saturday after a reception held in the honour of the PTI workers arrested during the party’s Azadi March.

When the PTI was in power, the PML-N leaders used to call it incompetent repeatedly in their statements.

Speaking to the participants in the conference, Mr Qureshi said the current government was a coalition of 13 parties and all these parties would go their own way after the announcement of the general election.

“All these parties come together in opposition to Imran Khan and for their personal benefits.”

He said Jehangir Khan Tareen and Aleem Khan had always done politics on the basis of their wealth and they would be contesting the next election on the PML-N tickets.

“I always said that the people participating on the basis of their wealth would not support the ideology of the leadership.”

The former minister repeated that the foreign hands were involved in the ouster of the PTI government.

“As a party, we had two options, either to stay calm or stand for our manifesto to protest against this fascist government,” he said and added that Imran Khan had chosen the option of protest and would continue his struggle against the ‘imported government’.

“As many as 134 members of the National Assembly had submitted their resignations on the direction of their leader, Imran Khan.”

Mr Qureshi said the opposition leader in the National Assembly was thumping the desk on the speech of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and he would contest the next election on a PML-N ticket.

While talking about his defeat in the Punjab Assembly seat in the 2018 election, he said some forces had played their role to ensure his defeat on the MPA seat with 36,000 votes’ margin while he had won the national assembly seat of the same constituency with 30,000 votes.

He said around 5,200 votes were rejected due to double stamps on them. “It was a conspiracy against the PTI in Punjab to steal his votes and defeat him on the MPA seat,” he said.

While quoting Imran Khan, he said he would have been the chief minister of Punjab if he had won the election of the provincial assembly. The former minister condemned the arrest of the PTI workers during the Azadi March, saying that the government’s closure of the roads had reminded them of the dictators’ rule.

“All these roads were blocked due to fear that millions of people would reach (Islamabad) for the PTI’s long march.”

Mr Qureshi praised the 156 PTI workers who were arrested during the Azadi march and termed them assets of the party.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2022