SIALKOT - In what is being termed as a major setback to the PTI, Umer Abdullah Ghuman, on Thursday, resigned as the party’s Sialkot deputy organiser and announced to join the PML-N.
Ghuman, whose stay in the PTI lasted for eight months, told a news conference at the press club that he resigned over the increasing materialism in the PTI. It may be mentioned here that Ghuman’s resignation comes a day before PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s visit to Sialkot. To a question, he said, “I have been taught some unforgettable political lessons by local PTI leaders during my eight-month long political stay”.
Ghuman said the PTI was not a party of the poor now, as it had been hijacked by local exporters-turned-politicians. He added that the PTI had totally neglected the local poor. He alleged that these tycoons were promoting materialism and pressing the voice of the poor in Sialkot. In August 2011, Umer Abdullah Ghuman flew into to the PTI fold from the PML-Q.
Political pandits said that the resignation could be a major setback for the PTI in Sialkot, when PTI chief Imran Khan was addressing a big party public meeting at Jinnah Stadium on Friday (today). In this respect, all necessary arrangements have already been completed.
As many as 500 private security guards, including police, had been deployed at the venue of the meeting.
Meanwhilem, PTI President Javed Hashmi, in his telephonic address to party workers, said that as many as 100 important personalities from Sialkot would join the PTI before Imran Khan’s address.
Meanwhile, Waleed Iqbal, the grandson of Allama Muhammad Iqbal, led a youth rally of the PTI in the city to attract more and more people to the party’s Friday public meeting.