LAHORE: PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi described the launch of the newly formed Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (IPP) — the new home of several PTI deserters — as “dead on arrival” on Saturday.
Qureshi made the remark while speaking to the media outside an anti-terrorism court in Lahore.
“There was an accident and a patient was taken to a hospital’s emergency [ward] … The doctor examined him and said, ‘Dead on arrival'”.
“So I will say this is a launch which is dead on arrival,” he said about the IPP.
Responding to Qureshi, another one-time confidant of the PTI chief and now a part of the IPP, Aleem Khan said on Twitter, “Respected Qureshi sahib, it is in God’s hand to give honour or humiliation and only He knows who is ‘dead on arrival’ and whose ‘the end’ it is.”
Led by Jahangir Khan Tareen — who once used to be a close aide of PTI chief Imran Khan — the IPP was formally launched on Thursday.
At the launching ceremony, the former PTI leader was flanked by several other PTI defectors — including those who left in the aftermath of the May 9 incidents and amid a state crackdown on it.
Those seen on the stage alongside him included former Sindh governor Imran Ismail, former PTI financer Aleem Khan, former Azad Kashmir prime minister Tanvir Ilays and former ministers Amir Kayani, Ali Zaidi, and Fayyazul Hassan Chohan, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Saeed Akbar Nawani and Nauman Langrial.
Former federal information minister Fawad Chaudhry who was spotted in the back row deliberately chose not to sit on the stage. His “uneasy body language” gave way to speculations about his decision to join the IPP presumably “under pressure”.
On several former PTI leaders joining the new party, Qureshi said today that “every political personality has the right to make their own political decisions”.
The “friends” who have decided to join the IPP include “big names” and politicians, he said, adding that they had used their right to decide for themselves.
Asked how he saw the future of the PTI shaping up in the current scenario, Qureshi said it was a federal party whose reach, ideology and support were across the country.
“The PTI is a reality … and I see a bright future for it,” he added.
