Promptly reacting to Sunday’s rally by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), politicians of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) said the voter turnout in elections would decide the winner and not the crowd of public meetings.
“Politics and cricket are different things. In cricket ground performance counts, but in politics votes decide the winner,” said PML-N Senator Pervaiz Rashid, who is also the spokesman for the Punjab government. About the rally organised by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in Karachi, he said both rallies were of a similar nature and “their director was sitting in the Presidency”.
On his announcement to resign from his Senate seat if Imran Khan’s procession crossed 50,000 people, he said his challenge was about the number of chairs placed at the venue but Imran declined to accept the challenge, which proved that the Minar-e-Pakistan procession did not have seating arrangements for 50,000. He termed Imran’s rally disappointing.
Later, PML-N MNA Khawaja Saad Rafique and Senator Rasheed addressed a joint press conference in Model Town. Rafique said the massive participation in the PML-N’s October 28 rally in Lahore had perturbed the “Zardari gang”. Lahoris had voted against corruption, load shedding, inflation and slavery of foreign powers, he said, adding that people were fed up with Zardari’s democracy.
He said when Zardari’s corruption was highlighted, MQM chief Altaf Hussain was disturbed in London and his party rallied in support of Zardari. He said now the MQM had become a “party for rent” of the PPP. He said the MQM had also rallied on May 12 in support of former president Pervez Musharraf when there was bloodshed in Karachi. He warned Zardari to face criticism or change his ways.
They said Nawaz Sharif was working against the status quo, visiting flood victims in Sindh, distributing food among them and sending doctors, nurses and medicine to help them, but it did not suit Zardari. They said the Sindh government, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and the MQM leadership did not bother to visit the affected areas.
PML-N looks to recover from Imran’s yorker
