HYDERABAD: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan said Monday that Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) demand for a separate province for the urban people of Sindh was a "fixed match" with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
While addressing a rally in Umerkot against poverty, lawlessness, terrorism, political victimisation and unemployment in the country, the PTI chief alleged that MQM had made this demand while taking the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) into confidence.
PTI vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi also alleged that the May 11 election results in Sindh had been changed.
Earlier while speaking to media representatives on his arrival in Hyderabad, Imran said that it was not advisable to pin any hopes in Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman as far as negotiations with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was concerned.
“I don’t think that Maulana Fazlur Rehman can do anything”, he said while underscoring that it was the JUI-F chief who had been in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2002 to 2007.
“As far as Maulana Samiul Haq is concerned, it is the first chance for him. And if he thinks that he can do something, then he should be given the opportunity,” Imran remarked. He added that anyone who believed that they could take the negotiation process forward should be given the chance.
The PTI chairman said he did not believe that the federal government was serious about holding talks with militant groups, adding that it was a major disappointment when the All Parties Conference (APC) passed a resolution for negotiations with militant groups and the United States “droned” the process by launching a drone strike.
“Neither the federal government nor the prime minister issued a statement condemning the drone attack,” he said and added that they failed to take up the matter in United Nation’s Security Council.
He said Nato supplies could be banned to exert pressure on the United States to stop drone strikes and said the strategy was being used in KP but supplies were continuing through the Chaman border.
Imran alleged that the federal government was pursuing a policy of hypocrisy like its predecessor. “Under this policy, the government publicly condemns drone strikes and privately subscribes to its policy,” he said.
He was also critical of utilisation of funds in the country and said funds for development purposes should be equally distributed among federating units.