Sit-in not staged at ISI’s behest: Imran

ISLAMABAD: The Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, on Sunday dispelled the impression that his party had staged the sit-in at the behest of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Speaking at a party workers convention, the first after several months and the issuance of the Judicial Commission’s report on the 2013 polls, Imran paid tributes to party leaders including Jehangir Tareen and Pervaiz Khattak for their valuable services to the party and for standing by him in difficult times.
Imran asserted that he would decide who had contributed how much for the PTI cause.
It is significant to mention here that unlike the past such occasions, other party leaders were not allowed to speak. Neither was any stage set up for the senior party leaders to sit on. The party leaders who were present there included Jahangir Tareen, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Justice (retd) Wajihuddin Ahmed, Hamid Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak and Dr Shireen Mazari besides other PTI legislators.
Imran praised Tareen for his relentless services to the party and said he was appointed by him as the secretary general after he held consultations with the party leaders.
The PTI chief, however, conceded that internal differences in the party were weakening them and the ruling PML-N was taking advantage of the situation.
Imran said that through the upcoming intra party elections, they would get rid of unwanted elements.
He claimed that every party wanted to forge an alliance with his party, saying all the parties were afraid of the PTI, being an anti-status quo party. About the political dynamics, he said, “Unfortunately, we are watching the moral standing going down in our country — corruption was unacceptable in the early days but now it is acceptable.”
Imran lamented that the extent of rigging in elections also became more extensive and commonplace.
He narrated how and why he had decided to make his own political party. “I wanted to build a genuine democratic party and let me make it clear that to-date no major decision in the PTI has been taken without consultation.
“In 1997, only before the elections, Khursheed Kasuri came with an offer from Nawaz Sharif for us to join him and get 25 seats. I refused,” he said.
Imran recalled then General Ehtesham Zameer approached him to join the national alliance but he refused. Then Musharraf called him in July 2002 and both met and he asked the PTI to join his national alliance. “I refused and he told me I was too idealistic. I told him great things could only be done through idealism — where you take risks”.
Sabah adds: “PTI’s Central Executive Committee had made the decision to stage the sit-in,” Imran Khan said and added that he had never made a decision without first taking the party’s opinion.
He said that he did not know who was behind the sit-in staged by the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Tahirul Qadri.
Imran Khan said it was impossible for a man not to err and that a successful person always learns from his mistakes. He said the PTI was the only party that all other parties were scared of.