ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) strongly condemned the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and former prime minister Imran Khan’s statement in which he said the country would be divided into three parts if the right decisions were not taken by establishment.
PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari said that no patriotic Pakistani could talk about the breaking up of the country. “A Pakistani cannot use such language but Indian prime minister Modi can,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
He said Imran Khan’s “desire” to divide the country into three parts would never materialize and “Pakistan will remain intact forever.”
PPP senior leader and Federal Minister for Water Resources Syed Kursheed Ahmed Shah, while reacting to Imran Khan’s statement, said “conspirator Imran Khan was exposed today. I always said that Imran was introduced into politics under an anti-Pakistan agenda.”
He also said after this statement, Imran Khan’s close associates would leave him.
PPP-P Information Secretary and Federal Minister for Poverty Alleviation Shazia Marri claimed that Imran Khan had “lost his mental balance” due to his removal from the chair of prime minister.
In a joint press conference flanked by PPP Spokesperson Faisal Karim Kundi and Nadeem Afzal Chan, she said, “Imran Khan challenged the existence of Pakistan. Institutions respect the limits of the Constitution and Imran Khan is threatening the institutions.”
She said Imran Khan was talking against the nuclear programme. “If there is Pakistan then we all are,” she said.
“Imran Khan says that if I am then there are Pakistan and institutions. Imran Khan has become a threat to Pakistan,” she claimed.
The PPP leader said Imran Khan’s statement was very serious and he was being criticized from all sides. She said when Benazir was martyred, there was an atmosphere of chaos then Zardari raised the slogan of Pakistan Khappay (Pakistan remains intact).
Marri claimed that the prices of petroleum products had been increased due to the previous government.
She said the government had announced giving a relief package of Rs28 billion to the people, adding Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) would give an additional Rs2,000 to eight million people while Rs2,000 would be given to six million other people who did not fall in the BISP.
PPP Spokesman Faisal Karim Kundi invited the PTI Members of the National Assembly to rejoin the Parliament or confirm their resignations with the Speaker so that by-elections could be held on their vacant seats.
He said if the PTI members were not willing to return to the House then they should vacate the public residences running through the money of the national exchequer.
He said that former prime minister Imran Khan had taken political asylum in Peshawar and was hiding in the Chief Minister’s House Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa “like a rate in a hole”.
He said everyone was condemning the statements made by Imran Khan and the quarters concerned should take suo moto action against it. He blamed Imran Khan for working on the “Indian and Israeli agenda”, adding, his “mental state” could be gauged from his statements.
Kundi, while criticizing Imran Khan for his self-assumed revolutionary leadership, said “one has to make sacrifices to become Bhutto.”
“Bhutto accepted the execution but did not stay in Peshawar CM House ‘like cowards’”, he added.
He alleged that Imran Khan was sitting in Peshawar for fear of the police station, adding, “You are talking about Bhutto. Those who used to laugh at us that Bhutto is alive, see Bhutto’s ideology is alive.”
He also underlined that the KP CM, Mahmood Khan, has “announced” that he would use force against the Centre (federal capital) and he should have been charged with Article 6.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022