Pervez Khattak – who heads a breakaway faction of the PTI after parting ways with former prime minister Imran Khan’s party – claimed on Saturday that the incarcerated ex-PM only wanted to “bring about a revolution against institutions”.
The PTI-Parliamentarians (PTI-P) founder made this claim while hurling a volley of allegations against the PTI chief during a media talk in Peshawar.
Imran lacked a strategy to address the challenges confronting the nation when he was in power and “used to tell us to lie to such an extent so that it appears to be the truth,” Khattak alleged. The PTI terminated the basic party membership of Khattak in July after he failed to respond to a show-cause notice for “inciting” members to leave the party.
The termination letter shared by the party had said Khattak failed to provide a “satisfactory reply within the given stipulated time” to the notice issued to him regarding “contacting party members and inciting them to leave the party”. This was around two weeks after he stepped down as the president of the PTI’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter while the party faced a crackdown following the May 9 episode – during which protests were staged and civil and military installations were attacked in several cities in the wake of Imran arrest in a graft case.
Speaking to journalists, he said, “Whatever happened on May 9 was not right”.
He also appreciated former army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, whom Imran has blamed for a “conspiracy” that resulted in his ouster from the top office through a no-confidence vote. Ex-army chief Bajwa “supported us a great deal”, Khattak said of the time when he was in the PTI. “But in the end, he too gave up and said he cannot do more.”
He claimed that former spymaster Lieutenant-General (retd) Faiz Hameed and Bajwa had “created an environment for elections, but Imran did not agree”.
The PTI-P leader did not elaborate on the context of these remarks.
Moreover, he continued, “I was the one who had brought around 60 per cent of electables in the party (PTI).” Khattak further said the PTI could be proven a “criminal party” and “face a ban”.
