LAHORE     -   Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan claimed the other day that he had dissolved the Punjab and KPK assemblies on the advice of the former army chief Gen­eral retired Qamar Javed Ba­jwa whom he had been accus­ing of toppling his government in April last year. 

In an interview to a news channel aired on Sunday, Im­ran Khan recalled one of his meetings with General Bajwa held in the presence of Presi­dent Dr Arif Alvi and said that the top general told him to dis­solve the two provincial gov­ernments if he wanted to have early elections. 

The PTI chief also gave an­other reason for dissolving the provincial governments in that interview. “When we dissolved our governments, it was in the background of senior PML-N leaders’ state­ments that if you want elec­tions, you should dissolve your governments. The state­ments of Shahid Khaqan Ab­basi and Maryam Nawaz Shar­if are on record in this record. So, we dissolved the govern­ments and now they are running away from elec­tions”, he said. In a light­er vein, Imran Khan lik­ened the current stance of the PDM parties on holding elections with the cricket matches played by school­children who would some­times run away from the ground along with the wick­ets seeing a clear defeat. 

“After this [dissolution of assemblies], they did like the children do in a play­ground. They pull out the wickets and run away see­ing a clear defeat. Now, we are calling them back to play with us, but they are running away from elec­tions”, he said.

To a question about nego­tiations over joint elections, Imran Khan said that they [government] wanted to use negotiations to delay the elections. 

“I think they are just buy­ing time, using delaying tac­tics, waiting for the May 14 to pass and then take the elections beyond October. But we are adamant on Pun­jab elections to be held on May 14 as the Supreme Court has already given its ver­dict on it. We have told them that if they had any proposal about joint elections, we are ready for talks”, he elaborat­ed his point. 

To a question, Imran clar­ified that he had given the mandate to hold negotia­tions [with the government] to Shah Mahmood Qureshi and not to Asad Qaiser. “Shah Mahmood Qureshi has not yet been contacted for negotiations”, he added. 

Imran Khan also accused General Bajwa of telling him lies about everything. He also revealed that a lead­er from a Middle East coun­try had informed him a year ago that General Bajwa was not sincere to him. He said he also had similar reports from the intelligence bureau that Bajwa wanted to bring Shehbaz Sharif into power. 

In reiteration of his pre­vious statements, the PTI chief said that despite the fact that General Bajwa and the intelligence agen­cy had the information that the PDM leaders had stolen the money from the national kitty and stashed it abroad, he still wanted to give them 'NRO' as he had planned an extension for himself. 

To another question, Im­ran expressed his readiness for holding joint elections in July this year if Prime Minis­ter Shehbaz Sharif dissolved the National Assembly by next month. He also said that his party will not al­low the government to pres­surise the Supreme Court to run away from elections.

He also said that the care­taker governments in both Punjab and Khyber Pakh­tunkhwa had lost their legal cover after the expiration of stipulated 90 days. He de­manded that the caretaker governments should be dis­mantled and replaced with a new neutral interim setup. 

To a question about mak­ing Usman Buzdar as the Punjab chief minister, he recalled; “When we were about to form our gov­ernment in Punjab, three groups were formed in the party. Buzdar was brought because there was no oppo­sition to him”, 

Asked about not giving party tickets for Punjab As­sembly elections to some aspirants, Imran Khan said: “Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Hammad Azhar and Fawad Chaudhry had been our fed­eral ministers. If I put them all in Punjab, then who will I work with in the federation? Countries do not run on wishes”, he averred, adding that no decision had been taken yet about the party candidate for the slot of the Chief Minister of Punjab.

He said he was trying to make the PTI a party which believes in merit. “After the elections, the party will hold an intra-party elec­tion first so that merit can be brought to the party. To a question about General Ba­jwa’s stance on the Kashmir issue, Imran said: “Whoev­er believes in Pakistan's vi­sion cannot forget Kashmir. There were some people who said fix the relation­ship with India. There were some people who wanted a relationship with India for their own benefit. But, until India restores the status of Kashmir, there could be no normalization of relations with India”.