Peshawar - The recent public gathering held by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in Lahore fell flat, signalling a significant shift in public sentiment against the party’s leadership due to their long-standing political stubbornness, hooliganism, and issue-less politics.
The disappointing turnout highlighted a growing disillusionment with PTI’s pessimistic rhetoric and perceived political hooliganism, unnerving its leadership.
Despite availability of clear roads, highways and motorways leading to the public meeting venue, the rally attracted minimal participation, raising serious questions about PTI’s declining influence in the country, especially in Punjab.
Observers noted that the lack of enthusiasm strongly reflected a broader rejection of the party’s reliance on merely tall slogans, especially in light of its founder’s ongoing legal troubles related to corruption cases.
Ikhtiar Wali Khan, spokesperson for Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, strongly criticised PTI for what he termed an extravagant misuse of public resources for the flopped rally.
He claimed that the gathering was poorly attended because the party resorted to hiring individuals from refugee camps for face saving, allegedly offering them 5,000 rupees to participate.
Expressing concern over PTI’s poor governance, he highlighted pressing issues such as the suffering of patients in public hospitals due to delayed payments under the Sehat Card Programme. Resultantly, people were forced to visit private hospitals for treatment on higher cost.
He said that houses were basic need of people and lamented that the provincial government has neglected the urgent need for 2.5 million houses for the poor and homeless in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“The winter is approaching fast, and the houses of rains and floods victims were yet to be completed in KP.”
The PML-N spokesperson also pointed to the PTI’s failure in managing its flagship initiatives. He noted that the Billion Trees Afforestation Project is under investigation by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), and the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system is facing significant annual losses of Rs3.2 billion due to poor planning.
He also criticised the stalled development projects, such as shopping malls in Dabgari Gardens and Hayatabad, which have further exacerbated financial losses for the BRT.
Stressing the importance of education, he cited a survey report of BISP indicating that 4.7 million children are out of school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a figure that may worsen with the planned outsourcing of the public schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Highlighting lack of action on key issues, he stated that PTI’s promises from the 2018 elections, such as providing uniform education and creating jobs opportunities for 10 million people besides five million houses were yet to be honoured.
He claimed that neither the policy of uniformed education for all was introduced nor jobs provided to 10 million youth as claimed by the PTI founder in 2018 General Election.
Ikhtiar Wali further claimed that despite PTI’s third consecutive government in the province since 2013 it has failed to fulfill the promise of construction of 350 small dams in the province.
He said that most of such dams were either washed away by the 2022 floods or left uncompleted, signifying its ill planning and mismanagement.
He expressed the hope that PTI leadership would concentrate on the resolution of masses problems and put the province out of loans burdens rather wasting energies in aimless agitation. He said that courts would decide cases of PTI founder and no one else.
