Imran Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and a former prime minister, has chosen not to attend the All Parties Conference (APC) that will be held on Tuesday, February 7, at the invitation of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to explore solutions to the nation’s present problems.
In a press conference held outside the Lahore High Court (LHC), where he had come to attend the hearing of his lawsuit demanding the announcement of the date for elections in Punjab, PTI Secretary General Asad Umar made the revelation.
“How we can sit with the administration while it is breaching the Constitution, filing sedition cases against us, and detaining our people,” the former planning minister questioned.
The PTI leader added that Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman was not prepared to announce a date for polls in the province. He further accused the government of purposefully causing confusion in order to hold elections. By Thursday, he hoped, the election date would be set.
A day before, Prime Minister Shehbaz declared that he would host the APC, to which all of the major political figures had received invites. The PTI Chairman Imran Khan was also invited by the prime minister to the conference. Asad Qaiser and former defence minister Pervez Khattak of the PTI were contacted by federal minister Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, a former speaker of the National Assembly, to inform them of Mr. Khan’s invitation to the important meeting.
The gathering has been scheduled days after a terrorist attack in the Peshawar Police Lines left over 100 people dead, the most of them police officers, and numerous others injured. In the mosque, a suicide bomber detonated himself after tricking police into letting him into the restricted area.
