Daily Times

Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) chairman Maulana Fazalur Rehman on Tuesday said that regardless of what Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan tries – including dissolution of provincial assemblies – general elections will be held on time, a private TV channel reported. “It is a suicide mission if Imran Khan dissolves the assembly,” he told the TV channel. On the rising political temperature in Punjab, the PDM chairman threw a spanner in the works by stating that the PDM will not back Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi as their candidate and restore him to the CM seat after he loses the vote of no-confidence. He has wasted his chance to show his commitment, Rehman stated. “When General (retired) Qamar Javed Bajwa took off his uniform, Imran Khan suddenly became lion and leveled serious allegations against him,” Rehman lamented. There was a time, he recalled, when people such as Imran couldn’t help themselves but flatter General Bajwa. “Sometime Imran Khan calls him an animal and sometimes terms him Mir Jaffar,” he said.

Rehman further said that Imran Khan had himself conceded that during his tenure, he was nothing but a dummy prime minister and that the real decisions were taken elsewhere. He added that Gen (retd) Bajwa had reached the conclusion that Imran is useless and that the Punjab chief minister too obtained his seat by sitting in his lap. The PDM chief expressed the confidence that any changes that take place in the political arena of Punjab will benefit the PDM. Asked if he was being kept updated on happenings in Punjab’s political landscape, given how the coalition there was not the same as the rainbow coalition in the center, Rehman said that both the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) were taking me into confidence over Punjab’s politics. Rehman disclosed that when they had spoken with both, former army chief General (retired) Bajwa and former Inter-Services (ISI) Director General Faiz Hameed when both were in power and proudly wore their uniforms.