Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA Mahmood Baqi Moulvi on Tuesday announced he was resigning from the party and stepping down as a parliamentarian over a “difference of opinion” about the violence that resulted from the arrest of Imran Khan on May 9.
Addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club, he condemned the May 9 riots perpetrated by PTI leaders, workers and supporters, adding that the situation had forced him to rethink his political future. “I can’t go along with this party,” he said of the PTI. “I demand the law-enforcement agencies to take action against all those workers involved in the violent incidents of May 9,” he added.
Explaining that several people within the PTI had disagreed with its senior leadership’s policies, he lamented that everyone was too scared to speak the truth to Khan. “Protest is everyone’s right but violent protests, and that too directed at our defense line, cannot be tolerated. I have never even imagined of going against the institutions,” he said. To a question, he said that he had no plans to join another party as yet, but indicated that he would be willing to join, or even form, a new political party that aimed to work for the public’s welfare.
Moulvi served as the adviser to maritime affairs during the PTI’s tenure in government. He was elected to the National Assembly last year in a by-election for a seat that fell vacant after the demise of MNA Aamir Liaquat Hussain. The PTI, following his press conference, has sought to allege he was pressured into quitting the party.
PTI Karachi General Secretary Arsalan Taj Ghumman, on Twitter, noted that Moulvi had been arrested a day earlier. “Today came his announcement that he’s quitting the party. The simple question is who’d arrested him and who’s released him? All other things are irrelevant,” he wrote.
Separately, PTI leader Ali Haider Zaidi—who was taken into police custody last week and has been placed under house arrest in Karachi—sought to distance himself from rumors that he, too, was seeking to quit the party. In a posting on Twitter, he said the rumors were “fake,” adding that some he considered “friends” had become party to “conspiracy theories based on lies and deceit.”
Claiming he would expose all “when the time is right,” he reiterated the PTI’s claims of seeking a democratic Pakistan, as he slammed the “present one ruled by corrupt criminals with fascist mindsets.” He also vowed that he remained loyal to Imran Khan and the PTI chief’s vision of a free and just Pakistan.