–Fazl blasts PM Imran, says his days are numbered
ISLAMABAD: The joint opposition committee has put an end to Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s plan of blockading highways across the country and called an all-party conference to discuss the future anti-government strategy.
The announcement was made by Rehbar Committee head and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Akram Durrani after a meeting of the opposition leaders.
“The committee has decided to allow normal flow of traffic across the country by deciding to do away with the Plan B,” said Durrani, adding the opposition will still hold regular anti-government demonstrations at a district level.
“Maulana Fazlur Rehman will hold talks with leaders of other opposition parties to decide the date of the conference,” he said.
He said that the government had gotten nervous after the Azadi March and the protests that followed.
He said that no one was ready to take up the mantle of the prime minister in case this government was sent packing.
“No one is ready to become the prime minister in case Imran Khan goes home,” he said. Durrani acknowledged that there were differences among the Rahbar Committee on certain issues. “The Rahbar Committee is made up of nine political parties,” he said. “There was difference of opinion on certain issues.”
Earlier, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman lambasted Prime Minister Imran Khan-led government for pushing the country towards an economic disaster, saying the rulers were either “incompetent or they were working under an agenda of destroying the country through destroying its economy”.
Addressing the participants of a sit-in at Bannu, the JUI-F chief said Imran’s days were numbered and compared him to former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev, who was heading the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic when the USSR imploded.
In a warning to the PM, Fazl said: “Your roots have been cut, you have been shaken, now count your days.” Talking about the Azadi March, which had culminated in Islamabad, he said that the JUI-F didn’t go to the capital without any purpose, neither did it return without any purpose.
The JUI-F leader further said that the prime minister accused everyone of theft but offered NRO [a reference to Pervez Musharraf’s National Reconciliation Ordinance under which cases against political leaders and workers were quashed] to his sister.
Rehman alleged that the PTI took funds from abroad. The founding members of the party had lodged a case in this regard against the leadership but for the last five years, the case has been pending, he added.
He said that the PTI submitted around 60 pleas against hearing of the case. “You are the one who took money from Israel and India,” he accused the prime minister, while referring to the foreign funding case.
“I challenge you, in my personnel capacity, to come and compare my character with yours, and the characters of our forefathers,” he said, adding that the entire PTI was corrupt.
The JUI-F chief also defended the participation of seminary students in the protest drive, saying that they have the right to cast their vote and to question the theft of their votes.