LAHORE: National Assembly Opposition Leader Mahmood Khan Achakzai has said that PTI founder Imran Khan had committed no sin and added that some forces were still planning a “minus PTI founder” formula.

He was speaking at a May Day protest rally in front of the Lahore Press Club on Friday organised by the Haqooq-i-Khalq Party (HKP).

Mr Achakzai, former NA speaker Asad Qaiser, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja, Senate Opposition Leader Allama Nasir Abbas, HKP General Secretary Ammar Jan and other party leaders participated and chanted slogans.

They were holding banners and placards and chanted the slogan “Mazdoor Ittehad Zindabad”.

Mr Achakzai said Lahore was the city of labourers and acknowledged that labourers were not getting their rights because of the mistakes committed by politicians. He said that no politician was bigger than the assembly or the country, and lamented that the assembly was usually auctioned off in the country.

Speaking on the occasion, Salman Raja said that it was a fundamental right that labourers could form labour unions and raise their voice for their rights, but they remained under attack during the past 70 years. “In this country for the past 70 years, laws were made so that labour unions could not function,” he said and added that only those unions survived that were in the capitalists’ pocket.

Mr Raja said that PTI founder Imran Khan had always said that the poor man’s child should get the same education as the rich man’s child. “It is the basic right of the labourer, it is the basic right of the farmer,” he said and narrated that Mr Khan always talked about labourers and farmers whenever he met him in jail.

He said the party founder had said that all should stand with the oppressed Baloch, stand with Mahrang, stand with the labourers, farmers and oppressed whether they were in Balochistan, Sindh, or in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.He stated that it was being said that hundreds of thousands of acres would be snatched from farmers for corporate farming, leaving labourers and farmers unemployed, while the capitalist continue to become richer.

Mr Qaiser said that the incumbent rulers had ruined the country’s economy, left the nation crushed under the burden of debt, and farmers devastated. He said the PTI had been pushed against the wall and expressed his resolve to continue the struggle in a peaceful manner.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2026