Imran Khan hopes: New military leadership will work to end ‘trust deficit’

LAHORE/ ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan congratulated the newly-appointed military leadership on Wednesday and expressed the hope that it would work to “end the prevailing trust deficit” between the nation and the state.

In a tweet, Imran felicitated the new military command. “We hope the new military leadership will work to end the prevailing trust deficit that has built up in the last eight months between the nation and the state.

“The strength of the state is derived from its people,” the former prime minister added.

Along with the message, Imran also shared a screenshot of a quote by Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah that stated that “the armed forces are the servants of the people and you do not make national policy; it is we, the civilians, who decide these issues”.

Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) Vice President Maryam Nawaz strongly criticised PTI Chairman Imran Khan after he cited the Quaid-e-Azam speech. In her tweets, she raised several questions. “Have you forgotten the year 2018, when you conspired against Nawaz Sharif, along with some officers, stole the public mandate, made public officers controversial, and ruined their future,” she asked Imran Khan on the social media.

“Did you forget quoting Quaid-e-Azam at that time? Your politics, like your senses, have been buried,” the PMLN leader said.

Addressing Imran in another tweet, Maryam said: “You have a selective memory, but people don’t.”

Reminding the PTI chairman of his ‘conspiracies’, she added, “You colluded with certain elements of the establishment; they raised and fed you like their godson.

“Now you beg for their unconstitutional interference, and when it is denied, you call them traitors,” added Maryam Nawaz.

About Imran Khan’s comment of people, army trust deficit, she added, “Have you the audacity to talk about trust deficit? You think people are fools?”

Separately, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Wednesday PTI Chairman Imran Khan should not use the name of Quaid-e-Azam to achieve his “nefarious agenda”.

“Whether Quaid-e-Azam had said that the (wrist)watch with the image of Makkah should be sold from Toshakhana, or did he say to offer a lifetime extension to the army chief behind closed doors,” she said while addressing a news conference here to brief the media about the decisions taken by the federal cabinet. The minister said Imran Khan, while congratulating Chief of Army Staff General Syed Asim Munir on assuming the charge, cited a farman (saying) of the Quaid-e-Azam and expressed the hope that the new leadership of the military would end trust deficit between the nation and state.

“If Imran Khan thinks that the meaning of trust deficit is to offer a lifetime extension to the army chief behind closed doors, then the mistrust actually prevails in his mind.”

Marriyum said Imran Khan “launched malicious (social media) campaigns against the martyrs and officers of Pak Army, formally invited the head of an institution to intervene in politics and above all forced the governor, deputy speaker and other constitutional office-holders to violate the Constitution so that he could remain in power”.

She asked Imran whether his wife demanding a ring of five-carat diamond from a businessman was in line with the Quaid-e-Azam farman. “Whether Imran Khan spent the donation money for political purposes in line with the sayings of Quaid-e-Azam and abducted Taybba Gul and put her in the Prime Minister’s House for blackmailing the NAB chairman, or locked up the FIA DG in the PM’s House, or did victimisation of political opponents or sell the gifts from Toshakhana, or launch the campaign against the military martyrs, or plunder national exchequer after stealing public mandate while following the teachings of the Father of the Nation,” Marriyum asked the PTI chief. She said Imran had no right to cite the sayings of Quaid-e-Azam on any platform as he had an autocratic mindset and was “hell bent on spreading hate, chaos, anarchy and polarisation in the country”.

To a query, the minister accused the PTI chief of “launching a malicious campaign against the state institutions and their heads on the social media networking sites”.

She said ironically, Imran Khan still had the audacity to say that the head of an institution should have at least intervened to stop the process of a vote of no-confidence which was moved against him by the-then opposition in the National Assembly.

People, she said, would never forget the darkest era of Imran Khan’s government which was marred by corruption and incompetency.

Terming Imran Khan an “incompetent and disqualified person, and a thief”, she said his long march had fizzled out. Imran Khan had exhausted all his political options and was now left with no other political move.

The minister recalled that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had filed a defamation case against Imran Khan for hurling accusations in the Panama case, but failed to submit his reply in the court to date. Now, the court would decide the matter if he failed to submit his reply.