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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan has warned his party’s candidates to start their election campaigns peacefully or their tickets will be stolen for the February 8 elections, The News reported on Wednesday.
The former prime minister, who is incarcerated in Adiala jail, said the tickets of candidates who do not come to campaign from Sunday will be replaced by others.
He made these remarks while speaking informally to media persons in the courtroom of Adiala jail.
The party’s founder was jailed in May last year and his election symbol ‘bat’ – a major voter turnout – was taken away this month. In addition, the party – PTI-Nazriati – with which it sought an alliance also backtracked on its commitment.
However, the PTI has vowed not to boycott the polls and contest without its iconic election symbol. Since the “bat” symbol has been removed, all his candidates will run with different symbols.
Khan further said that Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States and a witness in the cipher case, Asad Majeed, recommended sending a demarche to an official meeting after a diplomatic cable was received.
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“Shah Mahmood Qureshi found the cipher by accident. It was for General (retired) Bajwa. Every effort has been made to suppress the cipher. My government was overthrown three weeks after that. If there was no such thing in the cipher, why was the demarche sent? Does anyone ship it to America?” he added.
He claimed that in October 2021, General (retd) Bajwa hired Husain Haqqani – Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US – without his knowledge. He claimed: “Haqqani received $35,000. He tweeted that Imran is against America while Bajwa is in favor of it.
The former prime minister said that members of his party are not allowed to run election campaigns. “The elections should be held on February 8 anyway,” he added.
Meanwhile, PTI’s top leader Qureshi said he wanted to thank senior politician Javed Hashmi for speaking the truth.
Hashmi has announced that he will withdraw from the election race in favor of PTI-backed Aamir Dogar, who will contest the February 8 polls from NA-149 constituency.
“I am throwing my political weight behind Tehreek-e-Insaf and Imran Khan and withdrawing from the election,” Hashmi, who was part of the PTI and its arch-rival Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said in a post on X, earlier Twitter.
Qureshi said only the secretary was supposed to see the cipher and the National Security Committee (NSC) accepted political interference.
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