-Announces PTI’s Long March to be initiated from Lahore’s Liberty Chouck on Friday
-Terms latest move as March far above politics
-Hopeful for Country’s biggest rally in Pakistan’s history
-Urges masses to pour-in against imported government to achieve Real Freedom
From Abid Usman
LAHORE: PTI Chairman Imran Khan on Tuesday announced the date for his party’s much-awaited long march and said that it will start on Friday, October 28.
The announcement came while Khan was holding a press conference at the Chief Minister’s House in Lahore, during which he said that the march will start from Lahore’s Liberty Chowk at 11am.
Responding to the allegations levelled against him by his opponents for being “irresponsible” for holding a march when the country was undergoing a crisis, Khan said that when he had taken office as the prime minister of the country, Pakistan was suffering from the “worst economic” situation.
“At that time, the country had no foreign exchanging reserves to support the falling rupee,” he said, adding that to top it all off, his government also had to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
Praising the former, PTI-led government, Khan said that once the country successfully tackled the COVID-19 pandemic, it saw exemplary growth — one which had not been witnessed in the last 17 years.
“We employed efforts to help the farmers’ community and as a result, they were able to grow high-quality crops. Our IT exports increased three-fold due to the PTI government’s policies,” he recalled while also praising the Billion Tree Tsunami initiative to tackle the issue of climate change, which Khan said was lauded by the world.
Khan also extolled the PTI government’s health-card initiative and said that such schemes were not even found in the most developed countries of the world.
The former prime minister termed PTI’s long march “far above” politics and said that the move was “jihad as it was now a decisive moment for the people of Pakistan to choose their sides.
“This march will decide whether the people want to do slavery of these “thieves” or not. There is our march for Haqeeqi Azaadi and it has no timeframe. We will reach Islamabad from the GT Road and the nation will come from across Pakistan to Islamabad,” he maintained. mShedding light on the way the government issued warnings to the PTI in relation to the long march, Khan said that when he was the premier, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, PML-N’s Maryam Nawaz, and PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari held two long marches.
“At that time, they disregarded the economic situation of the country,” he said. The government approached the Supreme Court earlier to stop the PTI’s long march. However, the apex court rejected the request to issue an interim order for stopping the PTI’s planned long march — giving a boost to the Khan-led party.
Before it approached the top court, the government issued repeated warnings to the PTI chief, with a top official saying that the authorities would multiply their May 25 policy by 10 if Khan announces another long march.
If the PTI holds another long march, then it would be the second time they would be coming to Islamabad. The last march was held on May 25 and ended with Khan abruptly calling off the march after reaching Islamabad. Khan, during the presser, added that he was supposed to start the long march much earlier but the government created hindrances for the party.
“On May 25, our peaceful marchers were attacked and we had to call it off just for the sake of the country. Horse trading took place in Sindh House and our government was forcefully toppled. And when I won the July by-elections, I was bombarded with court cases,” the PTI chief lamented. He added that so far, the coalition government had registered 24 first information reports (FIRs) against Khan.
