Imran imposed on state by planners: Khawaja Asif

SIALKOT: Berating former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Sunday claimed that the former did not rise to power suddenly, saying “planners” had decided to impose him on the state.

Addressing the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) workers convention Sunday, Asif said Khan always stabbed his friends in the back. Referring to Khan’s criticism of the institutions, the defence minister said he “slams his benefactor from dawn to dusk”.

Asif said: “The deposed PM Imran Khan said that he made a mistake by granting an extension to General (R) Qamar Javed Bajwa, but on the other hand, he then offered the then-army chief an extension for life.”

Imran Khan was brought to power under a plot, Asif said, adding that after destroying the young generation, the PTI chief was demanding elections.

Dubbing Khan an “experiment”, the federal minister said that the former was launched in 2012-13 under an agenda. “It was a wrong and disastrous experiment,” he added.

Referring to the alleged differences between the PTI and PMLQ over the dissolution of assemblies, the minister challenged Khan to dissolve the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) assemblies. Meanwhile, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said the PMLN government, in the past, brought development and progress to the country.

Addressing a PMLN workers convention in Rawalpindi, she said inflation in the PMLN’s past tenure remained at 2.3 percent.

She said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in his term as Chief Minister Punjab, served the public while, on the other hand, the PTI government in Punjab destroyed development schemes of the province.

The minister said the PMLN leadership was targeted and victimised in fake criminal cases. She claimed all charges against the PMLN leadership have been proven wrong.