ISLAMABAD   -   Pakistan People’s Party yester­day urged Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan to face courts and stop hiding.

Speaking at a news confer­ence here, PPP leader Faisal Karim Kundi, who is also Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation, said the person talking of the jail bhatti tehrik (get jailed movement) was himself sacred of appear­ing before the court. “Why Im­ran Khan is scared of appear­ing before the court if he is not involved in any corruption,” he questioned. Kundi said the PPP did not believe in the politics of victimization but “Imran Khan’s own actions will lead him to dis­qualification and send him to prison.” Despite facing political victimization by the PTI-led gov­ernment during its tenure, PPP was always ready to sit at the ta­ble of dialogue with them for the larger interest of the country, he added. The SAPM said Imran Khan never told the masses in any of his speeches what he de­livered in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where he ruled for nine years. The PPP leader said the coali­tion government had taken dif­ficult decisions to save the coun­try’s economy from default.

He said the coalition govern­ment was fully cognizant of the sufferings of the people at the hands of inflation and was com­mitted to facilitating them. Kundi said the country was facing potent economic challenges due to the ineffective policies of the previ­ous government, which made an agreement with the IMF with en­dorsement from the parliament.

“The nation knows who is re­sponsible for the current eco­nomic crisis in the country”, he said. Imran Khan’s government played havoc with the country and its economy by taking harm­ful decisions. “We are account­able to the masses and want to provide every possible relief to them as we have to contest the election but such decisions were inevitable for addressing the pre­vailing economic crisis”, he said. Criticizing Imran Khan’s claims of a foreign conspiracy against him, Faisal Kundi said the PTI chairman brought defamation to the country at the international level by his “conspiracy theory” which shifted from the United States to “Rawalpindi”. The SAPM highlighted that the present govt was still facing challenges of re­construction of houses for those affected by the floods especially in Sindh, Balochistan, southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Pun­jab. He said the government had also increased the budgetary allocations for Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) from Rs 360 billion to Rs 400 billion. “The BISP is going to launch a dy­namic survey to register poorer households in the programme this month.” Kundi said PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would decide on the party’s par­ticipation in the bye-elections.