Lahore: In a significant development, Parvez Elahi, a former PML-Q leader, announced on Tuesday that he was joining the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
As political tensions in the country rise in advance of the general elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. Elahi’s cousin and PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat made the announcement shortly after removing him as the party’s president of Punjab and revoking his basic membership. Following the ex-Punjab CM’s meeting with Khan, PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry and Parvez Elahi participated in a press conference in Lahore where they announced their decision to join the party.
Fawad stated that Elahi and his supporters are welcomed by the entire party as they have begun the journey towards a “new Pakistan.” “Parvez Elahi has sacrificed and supported Imran Khan in good times and bad.” Elahi insisted that the party name the former PML-Q leader as the PTI president, and Fawad agreed, telling journalists that the senior leadership had also approved the choice. Shujaat claimed in a previous statement about dismissing Elahi that the former chief minister of Punjab “is forbidden from using PML-Q’snamein the future.”
Meanwhile, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Asad Umar, two of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s(PTI)senior leaders, have voluntarily chosen to turn themselves in to the authorities as part of the first phase of the party’s “Jail Bharo Tehreek (court arrest movement)”.
The PTI’s senior vice president announced that PTI Vice Chairman Qureshi and PTI Secretary General Umar had announced their voluntary surrender to law enforcement during a press conference in Lahore. Imran Khan, the chairman of the PTI, declared “Jail Bharo Tehreek” on February 4 in response to sedition cases brought against several of his party’s leaders, including Fawad Chaudhry, Azam Swati, and Shahbaz Gill. Khan has instructed the party to begin making plans for the upcoming elections, according to Chaudhry. He exhorted the PTI candidates to begin their campaigns in their individual districts. In reference to Khan’s appearance before the Lahore High Court (LHC) the day prior, Fawad claimed that the Pakistan Democratic Movement-led government is uneasy due to the way the PTI chairman’s supporters were received.
