Appropriate bedfellows: Imran welcomes Amir Liaquat into PTI’s fold

• Imran says PTI will ‘save’ institutions after winning general polls
• Referring to MQM, Amir Liaquat says he has left siyah-sat (dark trade) behind

KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Monday welcomed televangelist and the former member of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Amir Liaquat, and actor Abid Ali into the fold of his party.

Imran, who spent his second day in Karachi, met different delegations of party workers, traders and transporters and participated in various programmes.

Addressing a presser in Karachi flanked by Dr Liauqat and Ali, Imran welcomed them in the party, saying that the PTI already brought revolutionary changes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and now it wants that the people of Sindh should also give the party a chance to serve them.

Commenting on Liaquat’s tirade against the PTI in the recent past, Imran said that people can change themselves for better, and as long as they want to change, their past shouldn’t be brought up.

It may be noted here that Dr Liaquat widely criticised PTI in the past both in his media talks and television programmes.

Speaking on the occasion, Amir Liaquat thanked Imran for the support and said that PTI is the last party that he will ever join. “I have earlier left behind siyah-sat (a dark trade), and now I am starting siyasat (politics).”

Dr Amir Liaquat was earlier associated with Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQMP) and had quit the party as well as politics in the aftermath of an anti-Pakistan tirade delivered by the founder of the organisation, Altaf Hussain. Amir was detained by Pakistan Rangers in Karachi in the following months of anti-Pakistan speech within hours of which he quit MQM-P.

Addressing the journalists, Imran Khan said that the PTI will save the state institutions after coming into power following the general elections.

The PTI chief stated that he will lead Pakistan to a corruption-free era. “This era will not remain. I will be your captain and you be my team in the upcoming general elections.”

He blamed his political rivals Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif for the country’s problems.

“Nawaz and Zardari both are corrupt,” said Imran and added, “They engage in corruption and then burden the public with debt and taxes.”

He said that a common Pakistani was in debt of at least Rs 1,30,000. ‘Thieves’ steal labourers’ hard-earned money making them poorer, he added.

Meanwhile, addressing industrialists in an event, he said today the sad state of affairs in the country is due to the negative politics. He said some people come to political field to get personal benefits at the cost of the national institutions. He said the uplift of the nation is linked to the strengthening of institutions.

Talking about the megacity, he said in Karachi the situation was quite bad in previous years. He said then people were afraid and were not supporting the PTI due to this ‘fear’. He said: “If you are not corrupt, yourself, nobody in your party could indulge in corruption,” adding that for “the first time in the history we caught our minister in corruption and put him in jail”.

He said the hardest part of the job is to reform the police. He said the two brothers have been in politics for 20 years but they have still not reformed the Punjab police.