KARACHI: Awami National Party (ANP) leader Aimal Wali Khan has said the country is in the grip of corruption, nepotism and politics of victimisation.

Speaking at a rally on Sunday at the Hospital Chowrangi in Landhi, president of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter of ANP said the government and price hike had both been imposed on the people.

Referring to the elections held in the tribal districts that have been merged with his province, he announced that his party would formulate a new strategy “against the rigged elections”.

Mr Khan said there was no dearth of resources in the country but it was the policy of the International Monetary Fund which had made the life of common people miserable.

He was of the opinion that “worst types of rulers had been imposed on Pakistan and the United States”.

He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan was pursuing the same policies that he had been criticising in the past two decades.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman used to say that if the economy was in decline and the value of dollar was decreasing it meant the rulers were corrupt, the ANP leader recalled.

He said Prime Minister Imran used to say that people weren’t paying taxes, which was wrong as people were being squeezed through indirect taxes. It now appeared that there would be tax even on death.

Speaking about the state of the media, he said the prime minister becomes angry whenever he is referred to as a “selected ruler” but the restrictions now being imposed on news organisations were stricter than any imposed during the dictatorships of Gen Ziaul Haq and Gen Pervez Musharraf.

He said his family was in politics since several decades and whatever assets he owned had been inherited from his elders. “If it’s proved that we have property anywhere in the world you may hang us.”

Apparently addressing the PTI chairman, he remarked: “You came on the shoulders of others, but when you will leave the power corridors they will not be there to give you shoulder and you will not be allowed to run away from the country.”

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2019