Daily Times

LAHORE – Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday said that Pakistan needs leadership, not secret meetings.

Addressing the Leadership Conference here in Lahore, the PTI chief said that Pakistan needs leadership but was facing dearth of the same. He said that a leader’s real abilities come to the fore in the hour of crisis. “A leader is supposed to follow an ideology and lead the nation with a vision,” he said.

Criticising the secret meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Nepal – that had recently come to light – Imran said that Pakistan needs leadership today, not secret meetings. “Leaders do not need to hold meetings in secret. They do not need to lie, in fact they must be credible,” he said.

An Indian journalist Barkha Dutt in his yet-to-be-launched book claimed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held an hour-long secret meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, on the sidelines of the Saarc Summit 2014 held in Nepal. However, both the Pakistani and Indian governments rubbished the reports of secret meeting between both the leaders and termed it “baseless.”

Imran said that the meeting was held in Nepal and Nawaz Sharif was afraid of the establishment. He said that the leaders were not supposed to meet secretly, they must have some credibility. “Unfortunately, India and Pakistan leaders didn’t display leadership qualities”, he said.

He said that by improving trade relations between Pakistan and India, and resolving disputes like the Kashmir issue, our leaders can create peace in both countries. “The few extremists who resist, will always resist and need to be marginalised through public opinion,” he said.

He accused Nawaz Sharif of confusing politics with business. “Nawaz has started ‘Changa Maanga politics’ where all corrupt elements unite if one of them is arrested,” he said.

The PTI chairman said that he was a fan of Nelson Mandela – South African leader – who saved his nation with his leadership. “Leader is the name of thinking and vision, a leader follows an ideology,” he said, adding that Pakistan was in need of leadership as half of the country’s population was living under the poverty line.

Imran said that poverty was Pakistan’s biggest issue and therefore, peace should be our top priority for fighting the poverty. He quoted from China’s example, saying that China first fought the poverty and the decline of poverty in their country automatically raised their growth rate.

He claimed that crime rate in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had declined by 60 percent because the provincial police was neutral. He said that Pakhtunkhwa government ‘commercialised’ 60 rest-houses that had an annual expense of Rs 20 million each, which was drawn from taxpayer money. “Within six weeks, the guest-houses made Rs 4 million, and all profits are being channeled back to the local communities, to be spent on health and education,” he said.

He said that to counter the damage caused by illegal timber-mafias – which had cut down over 2,000 million trees in the country – provincial government introduced the “Billion Tree Plan” in the province. “Pakistan is among the top ten countries predicted to be most adversely impacted by climate change,” he said.