Daily Times

Lahore: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan admitted on Tuesday that electables in his party maintained their spheres of influence.

Speaking to a private TV channel, he said estranged political heavyweights from southern Punjab Jahangir Tareen and Shah Mehmood Qureshi had their groups in PTI. However, Khan said that tension between the two heavyweights was reducing, and expressed the hope that the groupings would end once the PTI came into power.

Further, the PTI chairman hinted that his party would make seat adjustments with other parties with an aim to defeat the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

“We have to defeat Nawaz-league in this match,” he said, adding that a strategy had been formed for the purpose.

The PTI chief said 95 per cent of the recent surveys pertaining to his party’s candidates had proved to be right.

Regarding his party’s manifesto, he said that it was ready and would be issued between July 3 and 5. On the indecisions and differences within in his party, Khan said his party leaders were human beings, not angels, and mistakes did occur.

“Sharif brothers either attack Shaukat Khanum [hospital] or my personal life,” he said, alleging that the PML-N leaders were behind the upcoming book of his former wife Reham Khan as well as the campaign run against him by former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Khan vowed that if his party came to power he would end the practice of issuing development funds to members of the national and provincial assemblies, adding that the practice was a root cause of corruption.

Commenting on the condition of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), he said that if his party formed the next government it would not privatise the national flag-carrier.

Published in Daily Times, June 27^th 2018.