‘I have no wish to turn AJK into a new province’, PM Imran dispels controversy

“I strongly believe that the sacrifices of Kashmiris will never go waste. Their struggle of freedom is even earlier than the last 100 years and then Kashmiris revolted against Dogra rule. Now they will decide their own fate,” the premier said while addressing a public meeting at Tararkhal.

"I do not know who have linked this idea of new province with me."

PM Imran said the government would go for referendum in Kashmir to decide whether Kashmiris want to remain with Pakistan or independent.  

He said the rigging is the talk of the town before AJK elections, but "I ask how can we rig elections when the election commisison and the current government of AJK is of PML-N"? 

The premier said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) didn’t do anything with honesty till today. “For them (PML-N) everything is justfied if their empires are their own".

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When Nawaz Sharif being the finance minister of Punjab used to play cricket match at Gymkhana, he would bring his own empires in the playground. Upon being bowled out the empires used to announce no ball.

“I brought neutral empires in the game of cricket.”

He said in the past, both the Pakistan Muslim League’s leader Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples Party chief Asif Ali Zardari never pleaded the case of Kashmir at the international arena.

He pointed out that Nawaz Sharif, according to Indian journalist Barkha Dutt, held secret meetings with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in Nepal against the army of Pakistan. Also, Nawaz Sharif invited Modi, who was involved in firing pellet gunshots at Kashmiris, to his family marriage ceremonies, but did not bother to meet the Kashmiri Hurriyat leaders in India.

He said for the last one he had been extending offer to the Opposition to sit together with the government for electoral reforms, but they are paying no heed. “We have already floated proposal of electronic voting.”

Referring towards the war against terrorism, he said Pakistan faced only devastation after it fought in others' war.

The premier said his top most priority would be to help eliminate poverty from Azad and Jammu Kashmir, adding the Ehsaas programme is one of the biggest programmes to reduce poverty in the country.

He said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf won Khyber Pakhtunkhawa elections with two-third majority in 2018 and now the poverty had been brought down there.  

He said for the 40 percent of poor population, the ration cards for food items on subsidized rates would be introduced.

He said a software for the said facility would be launched by December, a database of which had already been prepared.

He mentioned that poor in AJK would get basic food items including flour, pulses, edible oil and sugar on cheaper rates.

Imran Khan said the government of PTI would also introduce a Health Card scheme for the people in AJK with Rs one million health insurance per household.