ISLAMABAD: PTI central leaders continue to jump the party’s ship, as Asad Umar announced on Saturday that he was parting ways with the party and quitting politics.

“After more than one decade in public life, I have decided to completely quit politics,” Mr Umar wrote in a post on X.

Like many of his PTI colleagues, Mr Umar rejected the “policy of confrontation with state institutions” while announcing the decision.

“As I had already stated publicly earlier that I disagree with the policy of confrontation with state institutions, and such a policy has led to a serious collision with state institutions, which is not in the interest of the country,” he wrote on X.

Says collision with state institutions ‘not in national interest’

He thanked those who supported him, including his team and voters of NA 54 — the Nati­onal Assembly constituency in Islamabad, from where he won the election twice in 2013 and 2018.

Mr Umar was one of the several PTI leaders arrested after the attacks on military installations on May 9, following PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s detention.

He was released after spending 15 days in jail and immediately relinquished his position as the party’s secretary general but didn’t quit PTI like his former party members Shireen Mazari, Fayyazul Hassan Chohan, Fawad Chaudhry and others.

Mr Umar, an acclaimed businessman, entered politics when he joined PTI months before the 2013 elections.

Following PTI’s victory in 2018, he was sworn in as the federal minister for finance, revenue, and economic affairs.

But his nearly eight-month-long stint as finance minister was marked by various hiccups, with a lethal combination of low growth, high inflation and a rise in the value of the US dollar against the rupee.

In April 2019, he stepped down as the finance minister after days of speculation, saying it was time to make some “difficult decisions” to stabilise Pakistan’s economy.

The youngest of seven siblings, Mr Umar is the son of the late major general Ghulam Umar. His 27-year career with Engro Corporation began in 1985 as a business analyst with a stint abroad in Canada while the company was still a subsidiary of ExxonMobil. He rose to the rank of Engro Corporation CEO.

PTI criticises information minister

Meanwhile, a PTI spokesperson criticised caretaker Infor­mation Minister Murtaza Solangi for calling President Arif Alvi “the spokesperson of one party”.

The spokesperson said the nation was well aware of the tactics of the caretaker government and the Election Commission of Pakistan to deprive the PTI of its constitutional and legal rights to contest the elections freely.

The minister’s criticism was in reply to the president’s letter to caretaker Prime Minister Anwaa­rul Haq Kakar over PTI’s concerns about the “erosion of fundamental rights”. He urged the caretaker government to provide “a level playing field” to all political parties in the run-up to general elections.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2023