KHAIRPUR - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has warned that his party would march on Islamabad if a law was passed to benefit “plunderers”.
“The nation will not tolerate another NRO,” he said, referring to former president Pervez Musharraf’s 2007 National Reconciliation Ordinance that had granted amnesty to politicians and bureaucrats accused of corruption and terrorism.
His remarks, made during an address to a public gathering in Ubauro town of Sindh on Sunday, come in the wake of government plan to pass during the current session of the National Assembly a controversial constitutional amendment that would grant convicts right to appeal against an order of the Supreme Court passed in a suo motu case.
The government would require a two-thirds majority vote from both the houses of parliament to pass the amendment. Since PPP is already supporting it, the government faces no difficulty in managing the required number of votes.
Imran warned Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi that they would take to the streets if the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) law was amended or the judiciary weakened to benefit Asif Zadrari and Nawaz Sharif.
The chiefs of Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz are “godfathers of corruption”. They “have already been granted an NRO once but we won’t allow it to happen again,” he said.
“[Punjab CM] Shehbaz Sharif should [also] stop thinking he’ll get away through an NRO,” he added, referring to speculations that Shehbaz was franticly trying to strike a deal with the establishment.
He alleged that Nawaz and Zardari were a corruption mafia. “A joint investigation team had revealed that Nawaz Sharif has Rs300 billion holed away in foreign bank accounts while Zardari is not far away from him when it comes to corruption," he said.
“How can these leaders be sincere with you when their assets are parked out of the country?” he posed the question, asking the attendees to vow that they would never elect a politician who has financial assets abroad.
Clarifying his own financial status, Khan said that he had started making money in the United Kingdom, through cricket, when he was as young as 18. He added that he spent 20 years making money in countries other than Pakistan, but yet all his property is currently in Pakistan.
"I want you people to make a promise today — vow that you will never vote a person who keeps financial interests and assets abroad," he said.
The second promise he sought was in connection with a social boycott of corrupt elements in the country.
Connecting financial corruption with morality, Khan said, "Societies die morally before they come to a financial death, which is why I am happy to see that Sindh has finally awakened."
The rulers of Sindh have continued to oppress the people of the province for decades. “I wanted that the people of Sindh realise that their rulers have been most unfair to them.
“The people of Sindh have finally woken up and I thank God that they are no more indifferent to the injustices done to them,” the PTI chief said.
He assured the people of Sindh that his political party will provide them with social justice and eliminate poverty if they were to be elected in the province during the upcoming election next year.
The PTI chief lambasted the PML-N and PPP for their "poor" performance in their respective provinces in the past two years while claiming that his party's performance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa can be judged by the 70 per cent reduction in crime rate in the province.
"Nawaz Sharif's security alone took Rs6 billion out of the national exchequer in last four and half years," Khan said during the speech, adding that he would end all such expenditures on the government's part.
Earlier, PTI leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi in his address to the gathering said that masses were now with the PTI due to poor performance of rulers. He said main cause of poverty in Sindh is the mega corruption being done there.
Jahangeer Tareen, Arif alvi and other leaders also addressed the public gathering, which was attended by a large number of people. More than 35,000 chairs were arranged at the venue which proved less than required.
Ready to dissolve KP Assembly for early polls: PTI
Agencies add: PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry on Sunday proposed to dissolve all the assemblies and conduct early elections on same day.
In a video message, he suggested that all assemblies, provincial as well as national, should be dissolved after consultation with the stakeholders.
He said that PTI was ready to dissolve Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and proposed the same for other provinces after national consensus.
Referring to ongoing deliberations to pass a bill regarding delimitation of constituencies in light of fresh census and subsequent allocation of National Assembly seats, the PTI leader said: “The spirit of democracy lies in elections and not in population census,” adding that delay in elections due to any constitutional amendment will not be accepted at any cost. Fawad said the bill should come under discussion in CCI before it is transformed into a law.
A Ghaffar Mahar/agencies