Minar-e-Pakistan rally exposed PDM, says PM Imran | The Express Tribune

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said the people of Lahore have rejected the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM) narrative by taking a “big decision” of not attending Sunday’s anti-government public gathering.

A day after the 11-party opposition alliance’s much-hyped power show at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore, PM Imran held two separate meetings in Islamabad with party spokespersons and senior leaders to discuss opposition’s movement against the PTI-government and matters related to national security.

The first meeting was also attended by Punjab Chief Minister Usman Bazdar and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan among other officials.

PM Imran while speaking to the party leaders said the real intention behind opposition’s “fake narrative” has been exposed before the nation in last night’s rally.

He said people have also rejected the opposition’s narrative of safeguarding their corruption in public gatherings following the 2018 elections defeat.

Expressing satisfaction over the government’s strategy to deal with the PDM movement, the PTI leaders said opposition parties were in a state of confusion over the decision of stepping down from legislative assemblies.

The party leaders said the government’s decision of not creating hurdles for the Lahore rally proved right. They were of the view that opposition parties’ defeat in recently-held Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) elections and their failure to gather a large number of people in their series of rallies have miserably failed their ‘anti-state narrative’.

Speaking separately to the government’s spokespersons, PM Imran said that the people of Lahore were politically mature and it took him 14 years to mobilise them to attend his political rallies.

He directed them to tell the opposition leaders at every forum that they will not get NRO-like deal come what may. He urged the spokespersons to counter the opposition’s narrative vigorously and expose it before public.

Newly-appointed Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid, federal ministers Faisal Wawda, Shafqat Mahmood, Ali Zaidi and others were present during the meeting.

Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhary, while addressing a press conference in Islamabad later, said the country will now move towards political stability following the “failure” of the opposition parties to stage a grand power show against the government.

He said political parties which are part of the parliament needed to review their confrontational approach and sit for dialogue with the government.

“The government is not going anywhere but we want to keep our doors of negotiations open especially on electoral reforms,” he added.

However, he reiterated that no negotiations will be held on the corruption cases.