DARGAI: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday asked the estranged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) members of the National Assembly to return back to the party fold because as a head of the party, he would forgive them.

Addressing a huge public gathering here, the prime minister told the estranged PTI legislators that it was his message to them to come back because “as a father” he was ready to forgive them.

“Humans can commit blunders. For the sake of your children’s future do not commit this mistake,” he added.

The prime minister said what message would be sent to society when elected representatives took bribes!

The prime minister said that he was talking for the betterment of those legislators because days of ‘Changa Manga politics’ had been over when the members of parliament were treated like herds.

“It is the country where people have awareness and they are aware of everything. They know it very well that you people have taken bribes to switch loyalties. The public do not believe in your words,” he added.

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The prime minister reminded those estranged PTI members of parliament that it would be difficult for them to live in society with such a stigma. The people would not marry their scions and their children would face difficulties. The public would not forget them, he added.

The prime minister said that often a decisive phase arrived in a nation’s history, requiring it to take a definite stance. Today, he said, on the one hand, big ‘dacoits’ of Pakistan had gathered to save their looted wealth and on the other hand, there were people who had been striving for decades against their corruption.

The prime minister said the decisive phase had now arrived for the nation to take a definite course.

Referring to opposition parties, the prime minister said they had been offering bribes to lawmakers to switch loyalty and party affiliation with their ill-gotten wealth.

He said those legislators who had been elected to safeguard public interests had sold out their conscience for wealth. They not only sold out their country and nation but also their religious faith.

There was not a single religion in the world that allowed such shabby acts, he added. The prime minister said the judiciary, Election Commission of Pakistan, and the nation, especially the youth, were observing the situation.

He said it was an era of social media and the young people had more awareness, knowledge and information available on social media. “It is being called a democracy,” the prime minister sarcastically alluded to the statements of the opposition parties.

The prime minister while sharing his experience of life in the United Kingdom said he never heard of the members of parliament selling their loyalties as they had strong democratic values and political insights. They never thought of such tactics.

The prime minister said under the Quranic injunctions, society had been advised to take a firm stance against evil and wrongdoings as it could not remain neutral.

In Sindh House, bags of money were distributed among the members of the parliament, he said, likening it to a ‘funeral of democracy’. The prime minister said it was an obligation for the nation to stand up and raise its voice against such tactics. The prime minister said during their rule, both Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had framed corruption cases against each other.

PML-N put Zardari into jail twice due to his involvement in corruption cases and fake accounts and the PPP framed graft cases against PML-N. Fazlur Rehman was named as diesel by PML-N due to his involvement in sale of permits during PPP government, while a corruption case against him was filed during the PML-N tenure, the PM added.

The prime minister asked a question as to how could they now sit together after accusing each other of committing such huge corruption in the past. What answers, these “three stooges” would give to the young generations! the prime minister said. The prime minister said by employing these tactics, the opposition leaders were causing such a huge damage to the motherland and eroding the moral values of the society.

He opined that wars had not effaced societies, but the erosion of moral values led to their destruction and when a society failed to differentiate between the good and the evil. The prime minister said the fight against evil was vital for the survival of a society.

The prime minister announced that the “three stooges” (leaders of three opposition parties) were going to lose the match miserably. The prime minister in a veiled reference to PPP and PML-N leadership said these two families had been plundering the country for the last 35 years.

The prime minister said that he had also strongly rejected a proposal to misuse public exchequer to save his government. “It is better to lose my government than misusing the public exchequer to save the government and bribe the people. I will damn it,” he declared in an emphatic way.

The prime minister without naming Shehbaz Sharif, said a person donning a hat had criticized him for saying ‘absolutely not’ to the US over drone attacks. He said that he had strongly objected to the EU ambassadors’ letter over the Russian-Ukraine war.

Comparing his firm stance over the country’s sovereignty with that of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, he said a “criminal and liar sitting in London, had bowed before such pressures as he had fears for his amassed wealth stashed away in the foreign banks.”