LONDON: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Sher Afzal Marwat has said that former leader Fawad Chaudhary played a dual role during the regime change saga, saying that the party founder Imran Khan revealed to him that the ex-federal minister "acted as a messenger" for then-army chief General Qamar Jawed Bajwa.
"The PTI founder told me in jail that 'Fawad, who was acting as a messenger for Mr Bajwa, was one of those who harmed us in the regime change operation with their dual role'," Marwat said, highlighting the "suspicious" role of the former PTI leader in Khan's ouster.
According to the incarcerated party founder, Fawad was in a "cohort" with the then-army chief Bajwa, the PTI firebrand said in a conversation with Geo News.
Marwat's latest salvo comes in response to Fawad being overtly critical of the PTI's current leadership, terming them as a hurdle in the incarcerated former premier and other leaders' release from jail due to a lack of political strategy.
Owing to the prevailing internal turmoil within the party with leaders often openly engaging in public tit-for-tat verbal spats, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and senior leader Asad Qasier had reached out to Fawad, urging him to keep quiet for the time being and not criticise the PTI leadership.
Even Khan has accepted grouping within the PTI and had agreed to meet "both factions" in Adia jail today. However, the party leaders were "not allowed" to meet the incarcerated ex-PM.
Earlier this week, party's Information Secretary Raoof Hasan, while speaking onGeo News'programme "Capital Talk" said that Fawad had been expelled from PTI after he joined another party, so he had no right to comment on the party.
Hasan had also said that some "touts" were running a narrative against the top PTI leadership on social media, adding "There is no impression in the PTI that those who left the party should be brought back".
Continuing, Marwat — the PTI MNA — said that the claim Fawad had been making that he joined Jahangir Tareenand Aleem Khan's group on Khan's orders, was in fact a big lie.
The remarks refer to the fact that the ex-minister was spotted at a launching ceremony of the Istihkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) in June last year.
The party was launched by Tareen and Aleem and largely comprised PTI deserters who had left the party after the infamous May 9 riots — which saw military installations being targeted — and the resulting crackdown on PTI leaders and workers.
Stressing that the PTI looks at the former member's role with "suspicion", Marwat said: "He [Fawad] was working against the party's interests."
"People like them fled when the party was in need," he added.
It is to be noted that former prime minister Khan, ever since his ouster from the office via a vote of no-confidence in April 2022, has time again accused Gen Bajwa of being behind the "regime change" move that led to his government's removal.
Khan had earlier blamed the United States for overthrowing his PTI administration.
Undermining Fawad's legal woes, Marwat said that cases lodged against the former PTI member were, in fact, a "mere eyewash".
"He was only arrested as it has [served] as a pretext for a way back into the former ruling party," said the outspoken PTI leader. "If he [Fawad] comes back into the partythen what is the fault of the rest [who left]," he added.
"It is also true that Fawad spent his days behind bars in VIP jails as he had a 'setting'," Marwat said, adding that the former PTI member was an un-invited guest who was speaking against the party.
Revealing that the PTI founder has summoned him for a meeting, the politician said that he would meet Khan as soon he gets back to Pakistan.
"I will meet the PTI founder by July 15 or 16," Marwat said, who is in Britain these days.