By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan has ordered his party not to compromise its principles for political gain, its secretary general said on Thursday, as the PTI weighs how to respond to a proposed constitutional amendment.
Salman Akram Raja said the instructions from the jailed former prime minister were passed on by his lawyer, Barrister Salman Safdar, who met him and his wife, Bushra Bibi, at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi on Wednesday.
The Islamabad High Court had ordered the meeting a day earlier, after Safdar and the senior lawyer Latif Khosa argued that they could not proceed with arguments in the couple’s appeals in the £190m corruption case without first consulting their clients. Safdar said on X that the jail authorities allowed a meeting of nearly three hours, from 4pm to 7pm. Khan has been in custody since August 2023 and is serving a 14-year sentence in the case; Bushra Bibi was given seven years.
Speaking on Geo News’s Capital Talk, Raja said he had held several lengthy conversations with Safdar since the visit. “Ian Khan’s fundamental message was to stick firmly to the ideology,” he said, adding that he had been given the same direction himself. The message, he said, was “not to bow”.
Raja acknowledged that a small group inside the party was unhappy with him. “It believes I am too ideological and talk about principles more than necessary,” he said. “They think we should seize the opportunities available to us at this time, whether it concerns the 28th Amendment or something else, and find a way forward.”
Khan’s instruction to him, he said, was the opposite. “We have to find room for ourselves based on principles and move forward. We are a political party, but we must not compromise on our principles.”
The remarks come at a delicate moment for the party. ARY News reported last month, citing sources, that the PTI’s parliamentary party had agreed to support the amendment conditionally, if Khan was released. A prime ministerial adviser has said the amendment is expected before the new year.
Raja said Khan had also reaffirmed his confidence in Mahmood Khan Achakzai, the National Assembly opposition leader, and Allama Raja Nasir Abbas, the opposition leader in the Senate. Khan, he said, regarded both men as people who would neither bow down nor be bought, and had picked them after careful thought.
He said Khan had also given directions on the creation of new provinces, both at Wednesday’s meeting and at an earlier one on 2 November. He would put the matter before the party leadership first, he said.
The former prime minister was unwilling to abandon his principles, his commitment to democracy or his vision of public welfare under any circumstances, Raja said. “For Ian Khan, the sovereignty of the people comes first,” he said. “His personal comfort is of no importance to him.”
On the question of new provinces, Raja said Khan had always supported more administrative units. But the PTI founder wanted clarity on the background to the proposal, on how the provinces would be created, and on how opinion in the affected areas would be gauged transparently.
Raja voiced reservations about a referendum, saying the word had acquired negative associations from those held under the military rulers Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf. “We will not rush into becoming part of a process that distorts history and for which history may hold us responsible,” he said.
Health concerns
Raja said the party was deeply worried about Khan’s health. His blood pressure remained uncontrolled, he said, and had reached 193 on Saturday, a reading Khan reported at Wednesday’s meeting. Khan, he added, regarded such concerns as unnecessary.
Khosa described the blood pressure as at a “frightening level” after the meeting, though he said Khan remained alert and strong. According to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Khan had been taken there from Adiala overnight on Tuesday for a check-up and follow-up eye treatment. Safdar said Khosa would help him with a pending petition from Bushra Bibi over an eye complication.
Government officials have often objected to lawyers using such meetings to make political statements. Asked whether the delivery of a political message could jeopardise future access, Raja said the conversation had been open. “There were microphones there, and the entire proceedings were being recorded,” he said.
He said Khosa, who is also an MNA, made several public statements after the meeting, and that some of Safdar’s remarks differed from them, prompting the barrister to clarify matters.
Rana Sanaullah, the prime minister’s adviser on political affairs, rejected suggestions that the visit was connected to the 28th Amendment.
“This was just a simple meeting between lawyers who agreed to present an argument in court and enable it to decide on an appeal,” he told Geo News’s Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada ke Saath. “This political theory that the meeting was held to discuss the 28th Amendment is completely incorrect; there is no such thing.”
Sanaullah said the Islamabad High Court’s chief justice had promised to arrange a meeting if the lawyers committed to arguing the case. Interior ministry officials, he said, had been aware of the visit, as it fell within their remit.
Local reports said Khosa told journalists after the meeting that the proposed amendment had in fact come up, though he did not disclose Khan’s position.
Asked whether distance was opening up between the government and “the institutions”, the PML-N leader said: “Distancing from us can never begin, and neither will it.”
“There is exemplary coordination between the military and civilian leadership,” he said.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
