Member of the National Assembly (MNA) Mahmood Baqi Maulvi, who was elected on a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ticket, announced Tuesday that he was exiting the party following countrywide riots after party chairman Imran Khan’s arrest. He had been elected to the assembly after the death of PTI’s MNA Aamir Liaqat Hussain in Feb 2023 this year. Addressing a presser, he said he was not intended to join another party adding that he wanted to thank party chief Imran Khan for reposing his trust in him. “I shall tender my resignation to Mr Khan,” he added. Mahmood went on to say that Imran Khan used to call Pakistan Army as the country’s backbone, adding that the country was secure and a nuclear power because of the army. “I neither went against the “whole” army nor ever will,” he added. Pakistan owed its existence, he said, to the army. He said even India could not have vandalised the martyrs’ graveyards adding that the attacks on them disappointed him. “It is not suitable to fight the army,” he added. He was not a part of the team, he said, that attacked security installments. “I am not blaming Imran Khan as he is not responsible for everything”, he said, adding that whoever advised so was PTI’s enemy. “We cannot [even] collect 25000 people for a protest in Karachi and then claim that people are with us,” he criticised. Mahmood clarified that “neither his software was updated nor anyone could do”, adding that he was speaking his heart. “Those involved in May 9 attacks [on defence installments] should be penalised,” he added. It was a tradition in political parties that they started firing a broadside at the army when they were out of power and vice versa, he said. Mahmood continued by asking if they would import the army from India or the US [instead]. “No one is concerned about people,” he added. Sindh government should, he said, start issuing health cards. He claimed that not everyone could benefit from the free-flour scheme. He said he had been doing a business for 40 years, adding that no one could accuse him of corruption of even one rupee. “It was disheartening to come across some PTI members asking party activists to storm the GHQ if Imran Khan was harmed,” he added. He had relinquished his Canadian citizenship, he said, for the sake of Pakistan.