LAHORE: The PTI on Monday dismissed as “fake news” a clip of party chief Imran Khan from a recent interview, which is being interpreted as an admission that he dissolved the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies on the suggestion of former army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.

In an interview to the ARY News over the weekend, the PTI chairman said his party was determined that the Punjab election should not go beyond May 14 as announced by the Supreme Court.

“We dissolved our assemblies when PDM’s top leaders ... were giving statements that the PTI should dissolve assemblies, if it wanted elections,” Mr Khan had said in the interview.

In the same breath, Mr Khan said that in a meeting with then army chief Gen Bajwa, in the presence of President Arif Alvi, Gen Bajwa asked him to dissolve PTI’s governments in Punjab and KP if he wanted elections. “Then, we dissolved our governments.”

But after this part of the interview was picked up by other media channels, as well as users on social media, the PTI posted on its official Twitter handle that this was “fake news”.

Soon after the PTI disputed reports based on Mr Khan’s interview, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb took a jibe at the ex-prime minister, stating: “Imran Khan was the first leader, whose statement was being denied by his own party’s official account”.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2023