KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Sunday called on voters and supporters in Karachi to end what he termed the monopoly of a single political party in the city.
“We have to create history in Karachi. There is monopoly of a political party in Karachi which takes turns in power over and over again. And you can see the condition of the people today,” the PTI chief told gatherings of supporters in different areas of the mega city, including Banaras colony and Lyari.
“If these people remain in power, the condition of Karachi will also stay the same,” he said.
Imran urged citizens of Karachi to come out and vote for the PTI and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) in the local government elections in the city to punish the current rulers who has done nothing for their betterment.
PTI chairman said that politics of hatred and ethnicity had halted the fast progressing city of Karachi over the past 30 years. “Karachi was the most developed city in Pakistan before ethnic politics was launched in the provincial capital of Sindh,” Khan told his supporters at Kakri Ground in Lyari.
“It all happened before my eyes when I saw Karachi going down and Dubai’s economy growing up as investors left the city due to violence and bloodshed,” he said. “In two years, 430 billion rupees have been transferred to Dubai,” he said.
“In Lyari people have been divided on the basis of castes and ethnicity and someone else took advantage of it,” he noted.
Khan pledged that he would unite the divided people of Karachi. “There can be no naya Pakistan without a naya Karachi.”
The PTI would bridge the existing divide between people of different ethnicities, he said, and urged people not to vote for a party whose leader was sitting abroad. “I will live and die in Pakistan,” he said.
The PTI chief said that, God willing, he would transform Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in one year. “If I get another year, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be a different province and I won’t even need to campaign for the next elections,” he said.
He said that PTI would make Pakistan a great nation. “This country will, once again, be on the track to the progress when people will come to find jobs in Pakistan,” he said.
“Vote either for ‘bat’ or ‘tarazu’ whichever the election symbol is available on the ballot papers as we have an alliance with Jamat-e-Islami,” the PTI chief told a cherished crowd.
Imran urged his supporters, including students, to launch door-to-door campaign in favour of his party and asked the children to force their parents to vote for PTI.
He said there is a dire need of bringing a change in every sphere of life including politics. He said politicians come in power to maximize their wealth but his party believes in serving the people.
Imran urged the people of Karachi not to vote for those party leaders who do not have any stake in the country. “Nawaz Sharif fled to Jeddah and then London; Asif Zardari went to the UK and New York when he came out of jail while Altaf Hussain has been in London for a long time,” he said, questioning their patriotism and sincerity to the nation.
The PTI chief said Karachi was Pakistan’s financial hub, and hence its progress was vital to the country’s progress. “Only good governance can resolve the issues of Karachi. Merit-based system and depoliticising police and other government institutions are needed to resolve all issues of the city,” he said.
The cricketer-turned politician alleged the prime minister to have connived with leaders of PPP and MQM to stop implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP), saying they want to save their vested interests.
Imran vowed to resolve all issues of Karachi, saying he will come to Karachi on December 6 to celebrate his party’s victory in the polls, which are scheduled on December 5.
In his address to a convention of the Insaf Student Federation in city’s Qayyumabad area, the PTI chief said Pakistanis were experiencing dictatorship under the garb of democracy.
“People should be made free to take their own decisions because democracy means freedom.”
Imran said a democratic system was based on the people’s government but lamented that people in Pakistan were experiencing a ‘democratic dictatorship’, which does not want to hold LG polls.