ISLAMABAD: Veteran politician Makhdoom Javed Hashmi has revealed that the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had suggested to him to create a forward bloc in the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) during the famous sit-in in 2014, but he preferred not to do that.

Speaking at a news conference here on Monday, Mr Hashmi claimed that he could have formed the forward bloc as he had the support of some 14 to 15 PTI legislators at that time, but he preferred to resign from the National Assembly seat instead as he did not want to end Imran Khan’s politics.

“Some friends in the PML-N asked me not to resign and make a forward bloc (in the PTI). I said I am not in favour of making the forward bloc,” Mr Hashmi said without elaborating as to who from the PML-N had approached him with such suggestion.

The veteran politician from Multan said that had he agreed to the PML-N’s proposal of making the forward bloc, he could have received the prime minister’s protocol. He further said that he was sure that the PML-N would now also have the realisation that creation of a forward bloc in the PTI could have been a wrong political move.

Mushahidullah refutes veteran politician’s claim

Mr Hashmi, who had quit the PTI at the peak of the 2014 protest sit-in in Islamabad against alleged rigging in elections, claimed that his resignation from the assembly had, in fact, saved parliament.

“Had I not resigned, it would have been the last day of the assembly,” he said without elaborating.

Mr Hashmi had previously only stated that he could have formed the forward bloc in the PTI, but this was for the first time that he had claimed that the PML-N had asked him to do so.

When contacted, PML-N’s information secretary Mushahidullah Khan refuted Mr Hashmi’s claim that he had been asked by the party to form a forward bloc in the PTI. Mr Khan said that he was privy to all the developments taking place in 2014 and could say with authority that the PML-N had not made any such suggestion to Mr Hashmi.

The PML-N leader asked Mr Hashmi to identify the persons who had approached him with this proposal so that they could be exposed as there was a possibility that someone might have in his individual capacity contacted Mr Hashmi at that time.

Mr Hashmi, who had been among close associates of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and remained an active member of the PML-N before joining the PTI in 2011, said Pakistan was today facing the worst-ever crisis of its history.

Holding both the military and the politicians responsible for the present state of affairs in the country, he said both “the civil and military powers alter the Constitution at their will’’.

Mr Hashmi criticised the role of the judiciary in the country, saying “the Supreme Court has caused more destruction in the country than any other institution”. He, however, immediately clarified that he was not talking about the present Supreme Court.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2017