PTI ready to bridge gap between Imran Khan and establishment

• PTI second-tier leaders discussing ways to get party out of current situation.
• Party wants establishment to reconsider its present policies towards party.
• PTI not shy of sitting with any political party or institutions, says Sadaqat Ali Abbasi.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), whose topmost leadership including its chairman, deputy chairman and president, are presently behind bars, is keen for a rapprochement between the institution and Imran Khan.

Party sources said that in the absence of its jailed top leaders, including deposed prime minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Pervez Elahi, the PTI second-tier leaders are seriously discussing ways and means to get the party out of the present situation where it is in a direct confrontation-like situation with the establishment.

According to a PTI source, there is also discussion within the party that continuing confrontation between the PTI and the establishment will neither serve the party nor the institution or the country. 

The source said that the PTI wants the establishment to reconsider its present policies towards the party and in return a guarantee can be given to the institutions about Khan softening his stance.

When approached by The News, senior PTI leader and spokesman Sadaqat Ali Abbasi said the party is ready to bridge the gap between the institutions and the PTI chief in the best interest of Pakistan and its people. He said that in the present scenario, it is in the national interest to resolve the differences between the two.

The PTI is also ready to be a part of any national dialogue for the holding of fair and free elections. He said that depriving the PTI, which he insists is the largest political party in the country, of the political process is not in the interest of any institution.

“We value the importance of the institution and for that reason do not want any rift between the institution and the people of Pakistan,” he said, adding that for the national cause, the people and the institution should not look at confronting each other. 

Abbasi said that in order to ensure political and economic stability in the country, the PTI is not shy of sitting with any political party or institutions. Instead, he said that in the present situation, there is a dire need for a national dialogue to take the country out of the present constitutional, political and economic mess.

Meanwhile, a PTI leader, on condition of not being named, said that in a recent core committee meeting of the party, it was discussed that the PTI leaders who are presently in hiding should come out and face the cases. It was discussed if they do not face the cases now, they won’t be able to contest the elections.

The PTI’s core committee was reconstituted after massive post-May 9 desertions from the party. However, the new core committee members’ names were never disclosed.

Before his arrest, former PM Khan had conveyed to all the concerned about their inclusion in the core committee with the direction not to make public its members' names.

Khan did not nominate any of his leaders, including Qureshi, who was later also arrested in the cipher case, as acting head of the party. It was left for the core committee to take collective decisions.

It is not clear if the PTI core committee got the party chairman's approval of it trying for a rapprochement between him and the establishment.

Originally published in The News