PTI to unveil ‘100-day plan’ tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan is most likely to unveil his party’s first 100-day plan of action tomorrow (Sunday), if his party comes to power following the 2018 general elections.

A senior party leader told The News that Imran was quite confident of doing very well in upcoming elections, even in Punjab, keeping in view the new political alignments in recent months and weeks and the idea of spelling out the proposed 100-day plan was aimed at attracting more people.

“Primarily, the PTI chairman will focus on the 11 points he had announced during the party’s Minar-e-Pakistan public meeting recently and how will his possible government go about in implementation of the same,” he explained.

Imran, he noted, had given direction to party experts for preparation of plans with timelines to deal with massive challenges Pakistan faces today. Side by side with a party committee on having a complete review of the PTI manifesto, a new six-member committee has been notified to thrash out recommendations for creation of South Punjab province.

According to a notification of the PTI issued this week, veteran politician Mir Balakh Sher Mazari, who recently joined the PTI along with several other politicians, has been made convenor of the committee, while other members are PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Jahangir Khan Tareen, Ishaq Khan Khaqwani, Khusro Bakhtiar and Tahir Bashir Cheema.

“The committee will formulate a way forward for the creation of South Punjab province in the federation of Pakistan. The committee will look into all necessary aspects and steps required in creation of a new province and submit an implementation plan to the party within a period of 100 days,” says the notification. The committee may call subject matter experts as per their need to help in formulating the strategy.

Meanwhile, talking to media persons here, Shah Mehmood Qureshi charged that the narrative, being projected by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was more dangerous than his recent statement.

Qureshi expressed fears that Pakistan could face sanctions from the United States because of Nawaz Sharif’s controversial remarks on the Mumbai attacks. However, he made it clear that Nawaz’s political narrative was unpopular within and outside the party. About the caretaker prime minister, the PTI leader said there was no consensus over the matter.

"We have not been consulted over the issue of caretaker set up," Qureshi complained. He said his party had forwarded some names to Leader of Opposition Khursheed Shah. However, these were leaked to the media, leading to a war of words between the PTI and leader of opposition.

About the widely-debated issue of proposed merger of Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Qureshi said that if the government had a fair intention, then it should have worked on the early passage of the constitutional amendment. He added that the PTI wanted not only the merger but local government polls in the region. The PTI leader said his party had always raised its voice for merger of Fata with KP and taking forward the process of reforms.