Within 72 hours, Tareen will unveil his new political party.
A news conference by the PTI’s unhappy leader is imminent, sources suggest.
LAHORE.
Tareen and his allies met with Aleem after the latter invited them to lunch.
The event was attended by both present and former members of the PTI.
Ishaq Khakwani, former SAPM Aun Chaudhry, Shoaib Siddiqui, and Saeed Akbar Nawani were among the many prominent politicians in attendance.
Sources say that within the next three days, Tareen will conduct a press conference with other prominent politicians to announce the foundation of a new political party.
In addition to Tareen, the news conference will feature MPs who have publicly broken with the PTI.
In the near future, Tareen would apply to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to register the new party, according to the sources.
Important politicians in Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh, Vehari, Lodhran, and Multan are rumored to be considering joining the new party.
The disenchanted PTI leader is widely believed to have sway over key politicians in Karachi, the rest of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan.
When Imran permitted the Federal Investigation Agency to arrest Tareen in the sugar scam case in early 2021, the two no longer saw eye to eye. Previously, Tareen had been a trusted confidant of Imran and had assisted the PTI in forming government in Punjab in 2018.
For more on how the PTI’s crackdown shows no signs of stopping, read on.
Later, the PTI-led Punjab government was overthrown with the help of Tareen’s gang of 25 MPAs, which included Aleem Khan. In the election for chief minister held in April of last year, these legislators supported Hamza Shehbaz of the PML-N.
After hearing multiple charges against Tareen, the Supreme Court ultimately decided to disqualify him from office 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 (ROPA).
His appeal to the Supreme Court was denied on September 27, 2018.
