Pakistanis prefer to go down with me than supporting Oppn, says PM Imran Khan

Facing a crucial trust vote in parliament, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday claimed that the entire nation was ready to go down with him rather than supporting the corrupt Opposition parties.

Addressing the Pakistan Overseas Convention in Islamabad, Khan slammed three Opposition leaders — Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Shahbaz Sharif, Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Pakistan People's Party Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari — as "three stooges" and said he was thankful to them for filing a no-trust motion against him that had strengthened his party.

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Khan said the Opposition leaders were under the "false impression that the people had forgotten their corruption", but they were wrong as now, they had fallen into the "captain's trap".

"I predict that not only is their no-confidence motion going to fail, but they will taste defeat in the 2023 general elections as well," he said, foreseeing the triumph of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party in the next polls.

Turning to foreign policy issues, Khan said, he was not anti-US, UK, and India.

"I pray that a sensible leadership comes into power in India so that we can hold talks with them after revoking the August 5, 2019, decision on Kashmir," Khan was quoted as saying by Geo News.

He lamented that the Western nations had double standards as they do not allow people to become the judge, jury, and executioners in their homeland.

"But they (Western powers) were bombing on the Pakistani land and killing innocent people [...] and they are responsible for this," he said, lashing out at the previous governments of PPP and PML-N.

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He claimed that no government in the past had performed better than his administration given the “unprecedented challenges” such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

He also challenged the media, economists, and the Opposition parties to hold a debate with the government over its performance since coming into power in 2018.

The Speaker of the National Assembly is expected to call the lower house in session by March 22, while voting on the no-confidence motion must take place between March 26 and March 30, according to Pakistani media reports.

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