Audio leak exposes Imran’s hypocrisy, says Shehbaz

ISLAMABAD/LONDON: In response to the latest audio leak of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Friday in which he could be heard talking about buying five votes, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the latest audio leak exposes the hypocrisy of Imran Niazi.

“Someone who does not tire of lecturing nation on morality is himself blatantly involved in immoral horse-trading,” the PM said in a tweet. “His fraudulent nature is being exposed every day. Niazi’s anti-state actions make him unfit for high office.”

Reacting to the development, senior PTI leader Fawad Chauhdry claimed that this audio is edited and the people know the source of audio leaks.

“Can you justify the NRO-II by making such audios? It won’t happen. People know where these are being produced and how.” The long march will be decisive, he said. On the other hand, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal termed the PTI chief “a conman and a fraud”.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) Vice President Maryam Nawaz said Imran Khan publicly condemned horse-trading, but behind the scenes he purchased parliamentarians and justified his acts in his lust for power.

Speaking here at Hasan Nawaz Sharif’s office a day after reaching London from Pakistan, she said he [Imran Khan] publicly issued fatwas against his political opponents accusing them of horse-trading, but privately he used every dirty trick to get his objectives.”

She said that while Khan incessantly falsely accused other politicians of being involved in horse-trading and called them evil, he himself kept setting up markets for “buying and selling” lawmakers behind closed doors.

“He even said that those who engage in horse-trading are polytheists. If this is polytheism, then Khan Sahib himself is the biggest polytheist alive,” she said. Talking to this correspondent, she alleged that Imran Khan’s whole life and politics were based on dirty conspiracies, but it’s only now that his true face was being revealed through undeniable audio leaks, exposing his “evil nature”.

She said that the leaked audios of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman had established beyond any doubt that he could go to any extent to grab power. “He has no morality and he doesn’t care for any moral principles. In his latest audio leak, Imran Khan says it doesn’t matter what is right and what’s wrong as long as it guarantees power for him. He has been caught lying, cheating, misleading and telling falsehoods to his own followers,” Maryam Nawaz said.

The PMLN vice president said that everything related to former premier was a conspiracy. “It’s shocking that everything related to him is linked with a conspiracy, and that’s the reason I call him fitna (rabble-rouser). His real name should be Sazish [conspiracy] Khan.”

Maryam said: “I call Imran Khan Triple F, which stands for Foreign Funded Fitna (FFF).” Maryam claimed that Khan had always been involved in conspiracies, but his true face was exposed only yesterday.

“It is no surprise as to who launched him into the political arena to start a campaign against Nawaz Sharif, and everyone knows who was behind PTI’s 2014 sit-ins; everyone knows who has been supporting him since 2011 and funding him,” she said.

Recalling the General Elections 2018 that saw Khan becoming the country’s prime minister, Maryam said Nawaz’s “winning members were kicked out [of the assembly]”. “The government was changed in Balochistan, so did it happen without horse-trading? What’s more, Khan’s party — through his plotting and planning — also won the election for the Senate chairman,” she claimed, adding that fake cases were registered against Nawaz Sharif to remove him from the political arena.

Continuing, Maryam Nawaz said: “The whole world saw how microphones and cameras were installed in the upper house [during the voting process] and how members were picked up and locked in containers as part of a conspiracy in which Imran Khan was involved. It’s only now that Imran Khan’s real face is exposed in the absence of support that he relied upon for a long time for his politics.”

“As I said, Khan had long been involved in hatching conspiracies but his plans could not be foiled until now,” she stated, adding that as soon as Khan lost the support of those who favoured him, he started witnessing a political downfall.

The PMLN leader then said that while Khan always talks about his narrative of fairness, the nation learned the truth today as the audio leaks nullified his narrative. “His conspiratorial face has been exposed before the whole world today,” she said. “In the audio leaks, he could be heard talking about buying and selling members. He has always foul-played. The whole nation now knows after the audio leak. Imran Khan’s own supporters must be questioning today on the lies they believed in.”

She said that on the other hand, Khan could not provide a single piece of evidence related to the horse-trading allegations he hurled at other politicians. Speaking about PTI supporters, Maryam said that she has “sympathies with them”, adding that while Khan conveniently asked his party leaders to brand people as “Mir Jafar and Mir Sadiq”, he didn’t even have the courage to name those he was referring to.

Maryam further said that Khan, in a bid to come back to power, was trying to strike a deal. “This person, who was found guilty of bringing money to the country through foreign sources, should be termed a foreign-funded fitna”, Maryam said.

Maryam arrived in London on Thursday night to a big reception by PMLN supporters. She spent the night with her father at the Avenfield flats. They spent the whole day meeting party leaders and supporters at Hasan Nawaz Sharif’s office near Hyde Park. Maryam Nawaz will stay in London for a month and then will return to Pakistan.