Historic long march proved the people’s wrath against PPP, PML-N governments:Imran Khan

Lahore:Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday lashed out at the political parties of the status-quo and said that all the “tried and failed politicians” had joined hands against the peoples’ will for bringing about a true change in the country but the resilient and committed people of Pakistan would foil their designs by defeating them in the upcoming general elections.

Talking to private TV channels, Imran Khan reiterated the PTI’s demand from President Zardari to step down, stating that a partisan president who was a co-chairman of the ruling PPP was a major hurdle in holding of free, fair and transparent election.

He said that the successful long march had established a fact that the people of Pakistan wanted to bring about a change in the country by voting out the corrupt coterie in the next elections.

“The PTI believes that a true political change could only take place through free, fair and transparent elections in the country. Dr. Tahirul Qadri’s demands are the same as of the PTI, however, there was a difference over the modus operandi,” he added.

Imran Khan said that the PTI had unanimously taken the decision not to participate in the Qadri’s long march after a thorough brainstorming and it had decided to stay away from the long march. “We thought that any untoward incident in the long march might lead to the postponement of the elections and derailment of the democratic process,” he added.

Imran Khan said that Qadri’s long march had set a new history and it had been proved that the people wanted a change in the country. The PTI chief said that the parties of status-quo were violating the constitution and the laws of the land.

“The Federal and Punjab governments are running their respective electoral campaigns through taxpayers’ money. Programmes like BISP, laptop scheme, yellow cab and tractors’ scheme and the jobs-for-vote policy are a part of the pre-polls rigging but the election commission has failed to stop such schemes,” he added.

Imran Khan lamented that the election commission had miserably failed in checking the pre-poll rigging by the federal and Punjab governments. He said that though Chief election commissioner was a person of integrity, however, the officials working under him were corrupt and they were working to manipulate the electoral rules for favour of their masters.

“The PTI would not let the parties of status-quo to misuse their influence and rig the election through the use of taxpayers’ money. We have time and again said that the federal and Punjab governments are hand in glove with each-other and both are concealing each other’s corruption. We have also provided proofs of rigging bye-elections by Punjab government,” he added.

Imran Khan said that the PPP and PML-N were united to rig the upcoming polls and both had struck an underhand deal to facilitate each other’s win in the upcoming elections in center and Sindh Province. However, he warned that if the ECP did not put electoral reforms, the PTI would launch a tsunami march.