Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Party Chairman Imran Khan held close-door meetings with central Punjab members on Wednesday in which he reportedly discussed details and preparations for his ambitious real freedom protest march, Pakistani Dawn newspaper has claimed.
According to the report, Khan and colleagues also discussed how the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government may try to stop the march and what alternatives may be sought.
The PTI chairman asked office bearers and party lawmakers to take the oath and participate in the march, which he termed “jihad against the oppression.”
Khan said that the rally will take on the government and seek the dissolution of Pakistan’s assembly.
The former prime minister expects at least 6,000 party members from each district of Punjab to join the march. He has not revealed the exact date and place of the event so far.
“The imported and corrupt government had ruined the country’s economy, and the corrupt mafia was busy getting their corruption cases cleared. He [Khan] said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had cleared himself from Pakistani Rupees 1,100 billion corruption cases, while common people had been crushed under massive inflation,” Dawn quoted Khan as saying.
This will be Khan’s first major rally after he was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote by Sharif in April.
In May, he called another rally, but the event was abruptly called off at the last minute after party members arrived at the federal capital. Khan has been addressing many public gatherings over the past few months, all of which have been either state-level or small gatherings.