ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday said that the PTI would not award party tickets to bank defaulters, tax evaders and corrupt politicians while the party would also move the supreme court if the PPP and PML-N jointly got the tax amnesty scheme approved from the parliament to provide protection to their tax-evading MPs.
“You know over 70 percent parliamentarians belonging to the PPP and the PML-N are tax evaders. The PPP and PML-N joined hands to get tax amnesty scheme passed from the standing committee. If they passed the tax amnesty bill from the parliament, the PTI would move the supreme court against the discriminatory law aimed at providing protection to tax thieves,” he added.
Imran Khan expressed these view speaking at a press conference here on the occasion of joining of the PTI by former bureaucrat Roedad Khan, former ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, former provincial minister Sikandar Hayat Khan, former candidate from NA-79, Samundari Hammad Muhammad Khan, former MPA from PP-62, Faisalabad Rai Ahsan Raza Kharal, former candidate from PP-171-Nankana Sahib, Muhammad Ahsan Raza Wahga, former PPP candidate from NA-171, Khawaja Muddasor Mehmood and former candidate from PP-242, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sardar Iqbal Khan Qaisrani.
The PTI chief said that his party would respond to the Pakistan Muslim League-N’s (PML-N) nominees for the slot of caretaker prime minister today (Friday). Imran Khan said although Justice (retd.) Nasir Aslam Zahid is respected by all, but any decision regarding caretaker PM would be taken in the party meeting.
Imran Khan said that the PTI would move the Supreme Court against the ‘Tax Amnesty Bill’ jointly approved by PPP and PML-N meant for giving legal cover to tax evaders, whose large number took refuge in these two parties.
He said that both the parties approved the bill with the purpose to fasten hands of the newly-elected government—–which obviously would be of the PTI, so that it could not initiate any legal proceeding against the burglars, looters and tax evaders.
Talking about the intra-party polls, Imran Khan made it clear that the party would start reconciliation process with the objective to address the reservations of all the candidates and if needed elections would be held again in certain areas.
The PTI Chairman expressed his apprehension that the Election Commission of Pakistan might only allow those parties which completed their parties’ elections within an hour instead of the PTI which had been going through the process for the past ten months.
To a question about the All Parties Conferences (APCs), Imran Khan argued that all the political parties which were backing the idea of holding talks with Taliban were making fun of the PTI when it first suggested the proposal that the only way out from the crisis was parley.
The PTI Chairman said, “It is beyond his comprehension that they convened the APCs at the juncture when the present government has almost completed its tenure.” He said that it seemed that they needed an NOC from the US, which they got right now that was why they convened the APCs.
Talking about the Iran-Pakistan Gas pipeline, Imran Khan questioned that why the government took such time a long time to give a go-ahead to the much-needed project. He said that both these initiatives were against the US interests, so the present leaders neither had the gut nor the courage to take such a bold steps, but bringing to the forth such issues at this point of time when general elections were weeks away seemed a part of political gimmickry.
Replying to a query, the PTI Chairman said that there was no way out instead of holding elections, but the PTI would press the Election Commission for holding free, fair and transparent elections otherwise it would trigger a bloodbath.
Imran Khan said the PTI would give ticket to those candidates who had a clean past instead of those who had a tainted past involved in tax evasion, burglary and theft, because only a clean leadership could bring a real change, what the PTI striving for, hence the PTI would award tickets to those who uploaded their assets on the party web-site.
Welcoming the inclusion of nine influential personalities, Imran Khan made it clear that the PTI would not include those in the party having tainted past as in the case of rest of the political parties especially of PML-N.
Reiterating his appeal to Pakistani in general while to the Karachiites in particular not to vote those who had armed wings, as it was the only way out of the prevailing unrest and turmoil.
Talking about the recent surveys in which the PTI was rated below than the PPP and PML-N, Imran Khan said that the PTI was busy in the elections within the party due to which it might affect its popularity graph. However, he expressed his irony that how the popularity graph of the two parties witnessed an increase, as what an extraordinary things done by the two parties that shot their popularity graph upward.
Imran Khan said that both the parties had given nothing to the poverty-stricken, inflation-ridden masses rather giving them joblessness, lawlessness, poverty and inflation, so how these surveys could be trusted.
The PTI chief said that in the aftermath of March 10 public gathering in Peshawar and subsequent oath-taking ceremony of newly-elected office-bearers of the party on March 23 at Minar-e-Pakistan all those would get the answer who considered the two family-limited parties more popular than the PTI.
DND
