CHAKWAL, Feb 10: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan warned on Sunday of a ‘gory revolution’ if any attempt to ‘buy elections’ was made.
He claimed that Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-N had joined hands against the PTI but they would fail to thwart the change his party wanted to bring about in the country.
Addressing four public gatherings here on Sunday, Mr Khan predicted that the PPP and PML-N would jointly contest the elections.
He said his party respected Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim but his subordinates had been appointed on political basis. Therefore the Election Commission of Pakistan must be reconstituted to ensure free and fair polls.
Criticising the Metro Bus Service inaugurated by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore on Sunday, he said Rs80 billion had been spent on the ‘tiny’ project just before elections because the Sharifs wanted to use it to woo voters.
“With such massive funds, half of the students in the country could be provided free education of high quality,” the PTI chief said.
He said protesting doctors were being beaten up by police in Punjab and the provincial government had failed to solve their problems. “In a province where one bed is occupied by three patients and MRI machines and ventilators remain out of order for years, the doctors’ protest against the authorities is justified.
“Hundreds of people have died after taking adulterated medicines in Punjab but Shahbaz Sharif has remained unmoved.”
Human lives had no worth for Shahbaz Sharif who was more interested in road projects, Mr Khan alleged.
He said President Asif Ali Zardari had built a ‘palace’ on 120 canals in Lahore, and asked from where the money had come from for the project. “From public funds looted by the PPP government over the past five years,” he proceeded to answer his own question.
He said the elected government was about to complete its term but it had given the people only growing terrorism, inflation, corruption and ‘slavery’ during its five-year rule.
“Today every newborn in the country owes Rs80,000 whereas five years ago a newborn owed Rs35,000 to the donors,” he said. “Where have the foreign loans gone?”
He alleged that the rulers had become more prosperous and acquired properties abroad but the people had become poorer during the period.
He said people were being killed ‘like flies” across the country. “I have been crying for the last nine years that we should negotiate with militants. For this reason I have been named ‘Taliban Khan’ and declared ‘a terrorist without a beard’. But now Nawaz Sharif and the Awami National Party are also supporting my stance.”
Lashing out at what he called hereditary and dictatorial trends in political parties, he said the PML-N and the PPP were being run by two dictators and the Sharif brothers and President Zardari were grooming their children for politics.
The PTI was the only party in the country which was holding intra-party elections, he said and added that a tailor had been elected president of its Kohat district chapter.
He said the PTI would introduce new and talented leaders because it did not need heavyweights who were always ready to sell their loyalties.The party would celebrate ‘Jashn-i-Jamhooriat’ on March 23 by holding a public gathering at Minar-i-Pakistan in which newly elected office-bearers of the party would be administered oath, he said.
A local leader of the PTI, Chaudhry Ali Nasir Bhatti, said the party stood for an ideology and added that people would vote for it because they knew that only it could change their fate.
On this occasion, Raja Yassir Sarfaraz, who runs an elite school in Chakwal, joined the PTI with several friends.
Imran Khan spent a busy day in Chakwal and also went to Choa Saidan Shah where he addressed two public meetings.