LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan will contest the next general election from Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, party’s Secretary Information Fawad Chaudhry announced on Tuesday.
“This time, Imran Khan has decided to contest elections from Karachi, besides other constituencies of Punjab and KP,” Fawad told a party function here. In the upcoming general election, the PTI will nominate around 250 candidates in different constituencies of the National Assembly out of total 272 seats on which the elections will be held, he said, adding the party had already completed its homework and would kick-start electioneering from March 8.
“No political party, but PTI, is in a position to contest elections from all the four provinces. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is limited to central Punjab while the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has shrunk to Sindh,” he claimed, adding that in the present political scenario, the ruling PML-N is hardly a party of 100 candidates, mainly in Punjab.
Fawad Chaudhry claimed the PTI had emerged as the biggest political party of the country and that Imran Khan would be the next prime minister of Pakistan. He underscored that the PTI would have won general elections if polls were not rigged in 2013. The party had to face defeat because it was not prepared to halt rigging, he said. “However, now we have the largest number of veteran politicians. We are also prepared to stop rigging and will not allow any political party to use unfair means to win elections,” he claimed.
Citing another reason for failure in the 2013 polls, he said that the PTI failed to emerge victorious in the 2013 general elections as its candidates were ‘inexperienced’.
The PTI central spokesperson said after completion of the delimitation process, the party will hold a public gathering in Karachi next month, while formal electioneering will be launched from March 8. Though various candidates have already been shortlisted for tickets for 2018 general elections, the party will soon announce date for receiving applications after deliberation among the senior leaders, he said.
Criticising the PML-N, Fawad Chaudhry said the ruling party had only 94 days left in the government. “They are completing five-year term like the mourning period of a widow because all ministers, including the prime minister, are blaming that agencies, establishment and judiciary are hatching conspiracies against them,” he said. “After visiting Balochistan, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had alleged that agencies were working against the government and state departments were not in the government control. If the situation is that much ugly, why ruling party is still stuck to the government,” he questioned.
Fawad Chaudhry said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif wanted to remain in politics in order to make his children powerful. “Why the bureaucracy in Punjab is protesting over the arrest of Ahad Cheema?” he asked.
Published in Daily Times, February 28th 2018.
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