LAHORE: PPP leaders Shazia Marri and Faisal Karim Kundi on Sunday criticised PTI Chairman Imran Khan over his party’s long march towards Islamabad, saying he was ‘destabilising the country’ through ‘politics of propaganda, hate and division’.
“While you comfort your own children, why you are using the other people’s children for your long march,” said Ms Marri while speaking to journalists after attending a party’s event.
Commenting on the situation after the floods, Ms Marri, who is also the federal minister for poverty alleviation and social safety, said 34 districts of the country were still inundated while 8.2 million people need medical aid.
“But still, some conspirators are trying to divert the focus of people from floods to politics,” she said in an apparent reference to the PTI’s march, adding Mr Khan was unconcerned about the devastation as he was angry over being removed as the prime minister.
Shazia says PTI chief indifferent to flood devastation; Kundi claims Vawda exposed ‘objectives behind the march’
She termed the long march unconstitutional, and suggested Mr Khan to use constitutional means if he wanted to oust the government. “He [Mr Khan] doesn’t talk about the bad performance during his government and continues with his propaganda,” she said. “Mr Khan only wants power, chair and helicopter.”
She claimed the PTI chairman was “promoting confrontation, abusive culture and training the youth for his vested interests”.
She also condemned the ‘brutal killing’ of the journalist Arshad Sharif and criticised the PTI chief for what she called “politics on a tragic incident”.
In Islamabad, Special Assistance to Prime Minister Faisal Kareem Kundi told a news conference PTI’s disgruntled leader Faisal Vawda exposed the objectives behind the march.
Since the PTI leaders claim the objective of the march was to pressurise the government to hold early elections, Mr Kundi advised the PTI chairman to dissolve assemblies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Punjab — where the PTI was in power — if he seriously wanted to force early elections.
He vowed the federal government would hold polls in October 2023 after completing the constitutional tenure of the current assembly.
He said the appointment of the next army chief would be held as per the procedure laid out in the constitution and ruled out any consultation with the PTI chief.
“The appointment of chief of army staff is a prerogative of the prime minister,” said Mr Kundi.
The prime minister could hold deliberations with the allied political parties in the coalition government over the appointment, he added.
Mr Kundi also censured Mr Khan for allegedly holding “secret meetings” at midnight and said such meetings were still taking place.
While commenting on why the federal government formed a committee to hold talks with the PTI when it was also criticising the march, Mr Kundi said the sole purpose of the committee was to avoid criticism from the media on a democratic government that believed in amicable solutions to all problems.
Syed Irfan Raza in Islamabad also contributed to this report
Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2022