Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said on Wednesday that his party will announce the date for second phase of “Haqeeqi Azadi March” in a few days after getting clearance from the Supreme Court.
“It will be the biggest protest in Pakistan’s history. I am asking you to remain prepared as once we get clearance from the Supreme Court, I will give you the date,” he said while addressing PTI’s national council meeting in Islamabad.
He urged his party workers that what they were doing was not politics but ‘jihad’. “We will take this country to real freedom and democracy,” the former premier said.
Noting that his party had an additional responsibility being the “only federal party” in Pakistan, Imran Khan said that PPP and PML-N had become regional parties with the former ruling interior Sindh and the latter just one province.
He said that preparations were being made to make the current government win the next elections. “No one has faith in ECP. Police officials and bureaucrats fear them even institutions fear them. They are trying to appoint their own people in different institutions.”
Khan said that the only reason the current regime came into power was to remove all the cases against them, not because they were sympathetic to the people.
“They say country is in bad shape but the same people ruled this country for 30 years and only moved the country to the point of destruction,” he added.
The former prime minister said that the PTI government launched 10 dam projects after 50 years including two big ones, adding that all these projects would not face difficulties as it would be hard to get loans for them.
“Moody’s has given them negative rating. WAPDA’s credit rating is also negative after Muzammil’s resignation. In future, we will also have water shortage issues. All the development projects would be jeopardised because we will not get loans,” he added.
Imran said that during the tenure of his party’s government, the country’s GDP was growing at a rate of 6 per cent and the growth rate was projected to reach 7 per cent.
Lashing out at the government for making the life of all Pakistanis miserable, he said that the country had never witnessed such inflation as it did during these two months.
“During our three-and-a-half-year tenure, we increased petrol price by Rs55 and diesel by Rs50 but the current government raised the price more than that during these two months.”
He said that the PTI government had negotiated to purchase cheap oil from Russia at 30 per cent discounted rates. “Now the finance minister says Russia should come to us. India is buying oil from Russia at 40 per cent discounted rates and they managed to decrease the price of petrol in their country,” he added.
The former premier said that the current government will never buy oil from Russia as it will annoy their masters – the United States. “They can never take a stand because they have billions of dollars stashed in foreign countries… they know the US will do to them what it did to Russian oligarchs.”
He said that the US conducted 400 drone attacks in Pakistan but the same rulers did not even condemn them once.
He said that India, Israel and some Western countries were the happiest after he was removed from power. “They are happy that Shehbaz is now prime minister because now their agenda will be followed, not what is in the interest of Pakistan,” he added.
Imran Khan further said that the agenda of Pakistan’s enemies is to disintegrate Pakistan into many pieces. “Indian analysts on their media openly say this. Those who brought them here want them to serve accordingly,” he further said.
