The newly established Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) in LAHORE announced on Tuesday that former PTI aide Jahangir Tareen would be their candidate for prime minister in the upcoming general election in October.
Party leader Aleem Khan made the announcement on the Express News show Kal Tak.
While expressing his opinions, Aleem vowed that his party would not negotiate a seat swap with any other political faction.
People are against PTI and PDM, thus in the next election, we will run against them. He affirmed that the IPP would not negotiate a seat swap with any political faction.
Khan made the observation that Tareen will be their prime ministerial nominee.
He said that PTI will soon collapse, and that after Eidul Azha, several lawmakers would defect to the IPP.
Khan claimed that Farhat Shahzadi, also known as Farah Gogi, a close friend of former first lady Bushra Bibi, was in charge of provincial matters while Usman Buzdar was ineffective and dishonest in his role as chief minister of Punjab.
He claimed that the PTI leader’s wife (who he called “murshid”) made all the important choices.
Tareen established the IPP earlier this month with a promise to promote economic and social change.
As a vote of confidence in Tareen’s leadership, about one hundred members of the PTI’s national and provincial assemblies defected to the new party.
Imran Ismail, Ali Zaidi, Amir Kayani, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Mahmood Molvi, Fayyazul Hassan Chohan, Murad Raas, and Jai Parkash are just a few of the PTI defectors who have joined the IPP.
After Imran’s imprisonment in a graft case on May 9, many PTI legislators defected from the party, which the government blamed for nationwide unrest.
The GHQ and the mansion of the Lahore corps commander were vandalised, while government buildings and military installations were targeted by protesters.
Tareen is widely acknowledged to have sway over powerful figures in Karachi, the rest of Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan.
Tareen, who had been close to Imran and had assisted the PTI in forming government in Punjab in 2018, had disagreements with Imran after the latter authorised the FIA to arrest him in connection with a sugar fraud in early 2021.
Later, the PTI-led Punjab government was overthrown with the help of Tareen’s gang of 25 MPAs, among them Aleem. In the election for chief minister held in April of last year, these legislators supported Hamza Shehbaz of the PML-N.
After hearing various complaints against Tareen, the PTI’s secretary general at the time, the Supreme Court disqualified him in December 2017, finding him guilty of dishonesty under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution and Section 99 of the Representation of the People Act.
His plea for review was denied by the same Supreme Court bench on September 27, 2018.
