LAHORE - Pakistan Awami Tehreek Chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri has strongly refuted the general perception that opposition parties have joined hands against the PML-N government to stall the Senate elections due to be held in March.

“Our only agenda is to get justice on Model Town killings. The Senate elections were not discussed even for a single time during the joint opposition’s repeated meetings held in past weeks,” he said while talking to a group of journalists at his office in Model Town on Saturday.

He claimed the government would be out of power in two months as a result of the opposition movement for justice to the Model Town victims.

No strategy has so far been worked out to bring down the government, although on January 17 the opposition parties had announced they would give one in a couple of days.

According to Dr Qadri, the PAT’s 100-member executive council is meeting on January 27 and its 1000-member federal council will meet on next day in Lahore. The proposals and recommendations forwarded in both meetings, he said, will be shared with opposition parties’ steering committee and action committee. And the both committees, he said, will meet after PAT’s central and executive council meetings. Dr Qadri dispelled the reports that leaders of PTI and PPP would not sit together in next protest due to emergence of differences between the two following Imran Khan’s remarks against the parliament during Jan 17 protest.

“Not only leaders of PTI and PPP will sit together in next protest but you would also see the central leadership from MQM-Pakistan at the stage,” said Dr Qadri, rejecting impression that Farooq Sattar’s MQM-P dissociated itself from PAT’s movement on Model Town.

To a question, he said there was a possibility that next protest to overthrow PML-N government will be held in two phases. The opposition parties, he added, will jointly decide on it.

To another question, Dr Qadri said the PAT’s movement should not be linked with Pir Sialvi agitation.

He said the Pakistan Awami Tehreek will fully participate in next general elections and could enter into an alliance with any party of its choice. He said a large number of people have participated in Jan 17 protest.

IFTIKHAR ALAM