Several members of the ruling coalition on Sunday criticized Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan for his comments about former Army chief Gen. (retd.) Qamar Javed Bajwa, questioning why he had felt the need to offer a fresh extension to someone after regarding the first extension a “mistake.”
Last week, during an interview with a private broadcaster, Khan had claimed that granting a three-year extension to Gen. (retd.) Bajwa had been a “mistake,” adding that he had been “betrayed” by the former Army chief.
Lashing out at Khan’s latest comments, Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique told a press conference in Lahore that the PTI chief woke up every day with a new mistake. “Going to Russia was my mistake, the Army chief’s extension was my mistake,” he said, quoting previous statements of Khan. “If you committed one mistake and we consider the extension a mistake as Khan sahab is saying, so why did you feel the need to offer an extension again?” he questioned, referring to a statement of Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed Anjum, who had revealed that Khan had been offered an “indefinite” extension by Khan to prevent the vote of no-confidence against him from succeeding.
Maintaining that this offer of another extension wasn’t just made behind “closed doors,” the minister noted that Khan had also repeatedly voiced this during rallies by demanding the next Army chief not be appointed by the incumbent government. “What did that mean? It meant that a new government after elections would appoint the next Army chief, meaning the [incumbent] Army chief would continue,” he said, adding that Khan had been silent on his criticism about Bajwa until the latter had retired.
Also on Sunday, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal accused Khan of “creating a drama of being deceived by the establishment” in recent interviews. In a posting on Twitter, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader said “everyone knows” that the establishment “helped” the PTI come to power in the 2018 general elections and had only distanced itself after the party had repeatedly failed to deliver.
Maintaining that the establishment had facilitated the PTI in “silencing” the opposition and media, he stressed that support had only been withdrawn when it became unbearable for the military to continue supporting the “incompetence” of Khan and his party.