PTI is modern-day JI, says Ghulam Abbas

Terming the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) as the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) of modern times, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas said on Monday that the PTI and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) were two sides of the same coin.
He was holding a press conference at the Lahore Press Club. PPP leaders Chaudhry Aslam Gill, Chaudhry Ashraf Gill and Dilawar Butt were also present. Abbas said that PTI Chairman Imran Khan succeeded in holding a big public gathering in the city just because of the PML-N’s ill planning and Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif’s rally just two days prior to the PTI’s show proved as starter for Imran ‘s gigantic show. The PPP leader called Imran a “chocolate hero” and said that he could not succeed in luring idealist party workers. The former PPP Punjab general secretary said that he had no intensions of joining the PTI, as his political career was attached with the PPP only. Abbas said that he was an idealist PPP worker and could not think of leaving former PM and PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s party. Contradicting media reports, he said that it was based on mala fide and he was sending an Rs 50 million notice to the newspaper concerned for defaming him.
To a question regarding formation of a forward bloc in the PPP Punjab Parliamentary Party, he expressed complete ignorance about it, adding that the party was united. Responding to a question about former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and his working relationship with him, the PPP leader said that Qureshi was never his ideal and he spent time under his PPP Punjab presidency due to former PM and PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto’s orders.
Commenting on cancellation of 40 million fake votes, Abbas said that all these votes were being used to obstruct entrance of the PPP into power corridors but it would not happen this time. Blasting the Sharif brothers, he said that the Punjab government was being run by them solely without any cooperation and the provincial cabinet was incomplete even after three and half years, as CM had 16 departments with him. Abbas termed the Punjab government responsible for death of hundreds of innocent people in Punjab because of dengue. The PPP leader said that 90 percent district headquarter hospitals (DHQ) were closed and nobody knew that where medicines of these hospitals were being used.
Abbas terming Punjab as a police state said that every institution in the province was victim of mega corruption, including education. Even schools and colleges of Punjab were closed and the government was busy in safeguarding its favourites, the PPP leader alleged. He said that on one side, the Punjab government was crying for price hike while it had done nothing on its part to provide relief to the masses. Abbas said that the PML-N feared a big defeat in the upcoming Senate elections while its other big concern with the federal government was the Benazir Income Support Programme, which was helping the PPP strengthen its roots among the poor masses.