ISLAMABAD – Pakistan People’s Party Leader Faisal Mir has made the ratherstartling claim that ‘spiritual’ forces were behind the PTI’s supposedabout-turn on its support for former bureaucrat Nasir Khan Khosa asPunjab’s interim Chief Minister.
Speaking on a private TV show, Faisal Mir claimed that several PPP leadershad defected to the PTI over the past few years, “these people have beenaffiliated with the PPP for the past twenty years,” Mir revealed.
He then said that one of these individuals had informed Mir that the Partyhad together decided upon Khosa’s candidacy, and the party had even heldconsultations with Khosa himself.
“The party had thorough consultations and even discussed the position withKhosa,” Mir claimed. “The PTI knew Khosa was the candidate who suited themthe most.”
The PPP leader then claimed that his source in the PTI informed him thatdespite everything being finalised, the PTI’s ‘spiritual’ leader–referringto Imran Khan’s wife–realised at the last minute that Khosa’s selection wasnot a good omen for the party.
“The spiritual leader used Imran Khan and Nasir Khosa’s date of births andthe fact that Imran’s name ends with ‘N’, while Nasir Khosa’s starts with‘N’ to deduce that this arrangement would not suit the party,” the PPPleader claimed in the startling revelation.
Mir also claimed that he verified this claim from a few other PPP memberswho had defected to the PTI, all of whom said that this was indeed the case.
The PPP leader also added that this last minute spiritual intervention hadforced several PTI leaders on the defensive, who were now having to defendthe PTI’s change in policy.
The leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Mehmood ur Rashid,for instance, apologised on public television and said that his party hadtaken an ‘immature’ decision in withdrawing support for Khosa.
Nasir Khosa, who is a former bureaucrat and who previously served as thechief secretary in both Balochistan and Punjab, meanwhile, chose not totake the caretaker position on Thursday.
Sources claimed that Khosa had not been consulted prior to being nominated,and thus chose to recuse himself from the position.