ISLAMABAD    -    Pakistan Tehreek-e-In­saf (PTI) said on Friday that it had extended its offer for negotiations only to the real deci­sion-makers and not the ‘puppets imposed on the nation’.

“We do not want to waste time negotiat­ing with these puppets, who do not have any vote bank,” said PTI se­nior leader Hammad Azhar while referring to the ruling coalition government.

His remarks came a day after Interior Min­ister Rana Sanaullah Khan said that Chair­man PTI Imran Khan should directly contact Prime Minister Sheh­baz Sharif if he was se­rious in his offer of talks to the government to end the ongoing politi­cal stalemate.

The PTI senior lead­er claimed that those incumbent ruling par­ties were imposed on people who had no vote bank and were hiding behind crutches.

He while giving a ref­erence to the military establishment said that the PTI offered the ne­gotiations only with the ‘real decision-makers’ for the sake of resto­ration of the Constitu­tion and democracy.

On the last weekend, former prime minister Imran Khan had con­stituted a seven-mem­ber committee to hold negotiations with the stakeholders to steer the country out of the present uncertain sit­uation.

However, the ruling parties had rejected be­leaguered former pre­mier Imran Khan’s of­fer for talks, stating that talks were held with politicians not terrorists and that the PTI chief is now himself seeking an NRO. Over the years, Khan has been refus­ing to directly sit across the table with his po­litical rivals as he has built his narrative on de­claring them as corrupts and looters and fears that shaking hands with them would jolt his narrative and dent his vote bank. Being the opposition leader in the National Assembly as well as the prime minister, PM Shehbaz has held out an olive branch to his bitter rival sev­eral times but things have gone beyond verbal statements only once when the government and PTI leaders recently sat down to decide dates for polls.

However, the government-PTI talks ended at a stalemate as the PTI leadership said they didn’t see any hope in the talks with the governments. Then, May 9 happened and things changed. However, PTI still believes that it should talk only to the powers that be instead of its polit­ical rivals.