The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) gained political strength on Wednesday when former Punjab governor and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) president Mian Azhar joined the party with a pledge to combat corruption with party chief Imran Khan’s visionary approach.
Imran termed the former kingmaker’s entry into the party “a great victory in the fight for Lahore” and said that now President Asif Ali Zardari will have to consider the PTI as a threat for his rule alongside other opposition parties. Azhar said that the country needed leaders such as Imran and warned those people who considered Lahore as their citadel that the PTI would soon conquer it. Urging the masses to come out on roads, he said it was the only option left to tackle issues of skyrocketing prices, unemployment as well as removing the clouds of uncertainty and disappointment shrouding the country.
He declared that it would be decided soon that who held power in Lahore and now the future of the province and the country would be decided from here. The PTI chief lauded Azhar’s son Hammad for convincing his father to join the PTI and urged the younger generation to inform their elders that change for a better future was all the more imminent and the country could not survive without it. Hammad recalled that his father had taken a stand even during the regime of the worst civilian dictator, referring to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif, in whose regime Azhar had announced a war on corruption in 1999. He said that those who remained part of the “corrupt” government were now weeping for the masses.
Mian Azhar joins hands with Imran
