News
Monday, January 02, 2012
Aleem Khan quits PML-Q, ‘to join PTI’
* Former Punjab minister slams PML-Q leadership for alliance with PPP
LAHORE: Former Punjab information minister Abdul Aleem Khan on Sunday resigned from the membership of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), accusing the party leadership of disrespecting the mandate given by the people. In a letter to PML-Q leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, Aleem Khan slammed the party leaders for joining hands with the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Sources said the former PML-Q senior vice president was likely to join Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). “He would soon join the PTI,” the sources said, adding that Aleem Khan was one of the sponsors of PTI’s public meeting in Lahore on October 30.
Aleem Khan, who lost the 2008 election from NA-127 and PP-147, said the PPP-led government had failed to deliver.
“The government has ruined the economy ... the power and gas crisis has brought the industrial sector to the verge of collapse,” the former minister said in the letter.
He said national institutions such as PIA, Pakistan Steel Mills and Pakistan Railways are in a bad shape due to the government’s poor policies. “How can a sensible politician or a party join hands with the rulers responsible for this poor state of affairs,” Aleem Khan said.
The former member of the PML-Q’s electoral board also criticised the government over the ongoing memo controversy. “The memo scandal has exposed the government’s real face,” he said. Aleem Khan said his supporters had wanted him to quit the PML-Q in 2008, “but I did not do so to keep the democratic norms supreme”. staff report
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk