One year after being ousted from office in a vote of no confidence, former Prime Minsiter Imran Khan once again repeated claims of a foreign conspiracy and said that a middle-eastern ruler had tipped him off in advance.
“One year ago, I left with a diary in my hand,” Imran Khan said in a speech on Sunday.
He said that a ruler from the middle-east had told him in a meeting that then-Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa was ‘not happy with him’.
“I wondered what could be the problem when I though we were on the same page,” Imran said. He added that the plan involved another extension for Bajwa and a deal had been made with Shehbaz Sharif for that aim. Imran added that it was Nawaz Sharif who denied Bajwa the extension.
He added that Hussain Haqqani had been hired to lobby the American authorities to convince them that Imran was ‘anti-America’ while General Bajwa was the opposite.
“When we reverse engineered the whole thing, it turned out that the consipracy started in Pakistan.”
Imran Khan said that a year of the installed government had resulted in one of the worst suppressions of human rights in the history of Pakistan and had completely destroyed the economy. He also said that the PTI had brought back the country from a similar disaster in 2018.
Imran Khan also said that now that the PDM government had failed to fix the economy and failed to get him disqualified in bogus cases, it was running away from elections.
“They will either run away from elections or put out important people in jail,” he said. “The people should be ready to come out on to the roads.”
Meanwhile, the PTI shared an “annual report card” and reviewed the one-year performance of the PDM government.
“The tale that began a year ago through a regime-change conspiracy has now reached the point of violating the Constitution after [causing] political unrest, economic destruction, worst fascism,” PTI Secretary General Asad Umar said.
In another tweet, he blamed the ruling alliance for the ongoing financial crisis in the country.
“Never in [the] history of Pakistan has the growth rate reduced by tenfold in a single year as it has done after the regime change conspiracy. Never in history has Pakistan seen the level of inflation as it has seen in [the] last one year,” he said.
Former human rights minister Shireen Mazari used the social media trend #9thAprilBlackDay in her tweet. “Regime-change conspiracy brought cabal of crooks into power after SCP (Supreme Court of Pakistan) took suo motu action against Qasim Suri’s ruling”.
She claimed that the PTI did not start a campaign against the judiciary.
“In one year, imported government & facilitators have destroyed democracy, Constitution and rule of law, and sent [the] economy into freefall,” she added.
PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry also slammed the incumbent government. “One year of Pakistan’s worst fascist junta. The long black night that came a year ago today to end Pakistan’s lights is still imposed.
The public’s undying struggle is a metaphor for the light against this night. God-willing, this black night will end in a few weeks and the power will transfer to the people,“ he said.
PTI chief Khan could not justify his “evil deeds including corruption and incompetency” by simply issuing a white paper, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb on Sunday said in reaction to the annual report
“Whether he issues white, red or yellow paper, nothing can help Imran Khan cover up his corruption and incompetency, besides the violation of the Constitution he committed during his government’s tenure,” the minister said in a statement reported by the Associated Press of Pakistan.
She claimed that it was the ruling alliance that had made concerted efforts to steer the country out of economic crises created by the previous government of Khan.
“How can Imran Khan, who himself plunged the country into an economic quagmire which ushered in sheer poverty, extreme inflation and massive unemployment, question the performance of a government which came into power just one year ago,” the information minister said.
Coordinator to the Prime Minister on Economy and Energy Bilal Azhar Kayani in a press conference alleged the PTI chief was responsible for the present economic turmoil in the country.
She said a person who brought the country to the brink of default issued a white paper which “ironically had no mention of the circular debt” in the power sector, which jumped to Rs2,400 billion from Rs1,100 billion during his own government’s tenure.
There was also no mention of circular debt in the energy sector which soared to Rs1,400 billion during the PTI’s government tenure, she added.
Leaders from the PPP celebrated the one-year in power.
Former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani’s son, Kasim Gillani lauded Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for his efforts to topple the “powerful one-page regime”.
“During the vote of no confidence against Imran Khan, the PTI government resorted to every possible undemocratic means to cling to power. Despite this, the determined efforts of opposition parties, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, succeeded in toppling the hybrid regime,” he said.
Coordinator to the Prime Minister on Economy and Energy Bilal Azhar Kayani in a press conference alleged that the PTI chief was responsible for the present economic turmoil in the country.
