RAWALPINDI, May 25: President Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) Javed Hashmi on Friday claimed that both Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) were on a path to inviting military rule due to their tumbling popularity ahead of the general elections.

Speaking at a news conference in Liaquat Bagh after giving final touches to the PTI’s planned public gathering at the historic public park on Sunday, Mr Hashmi said both the PPP and the PML-N were not in favour of holding general elections and were rather wishing intervention of a third force.

“They way the federal government was taking anti-public decisions coupled with the silent role that opposition was playing indicated that both the parties wished a military intervention,” the PTI leader said insisting that the rally at Liaquat Bagh will set a new course of political history in the country.

“Going by the findings of independent survey groups, the PTI is the largest political force in the country and the coming elections will prove it.

“In the situation when the popularity graph of the PPP and the PML-N was continuously falling, the parties did not want fair and free elections,” Mr Hashmi asserted.

He said the 20th Constitutional Amendment was a vivid example of the fact that the ruling parties in Punjab and the centre were trying to manipulate the elections. “But we will not let them rig elections,” he vowed.

Mr Hashmi urged intelligence agencies to prevent the government from committing blunders as the secret agencies were being paid from the taxes of the people, regretting that both the PPP and the PML-N were in league to befool masses and plunder public money.

To a question about National Assembly’s Speaker who dismissed bids to disqualify Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani following his conviction by the Supreme Court, the PTI leader said it was a wrong decision that will haunt the government in the days to come.

“The Speaker has wrongly compared my case with that of Gilani. I was proved innocent and clean while he was convicted for breaching the law,” Mr Hashmi said.

However, Javed Hashmi, 62, who joined PTI last year after quitting PML-N said Liaquat Bagh public gathering would shatter the dreams of rival political parties particularly the PML-N.

“Back in 1970, I addressed a rally in the historic park and at that time Sharif brothers did not even know what politics really was. I will teach them a lesson and will disclose many things on Sunday,” he maintained.